


Deeds of Gift

by canterville



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: AU, Alcohol Use and Abuse, Canon-Typical Incestual Vibes, Chatty Chamber Presences, F/M, Fast and Loose Worldbuilding, Implied/Referenced Incest, Intergalatic nobility knows how to party, Jupiter/Caine is a thing early on, Nectar Bath, Recreational Drug Use (Innnnn SPAAAAAACE), Scheming, Slow Burn, Weird Space Food, Weird Space Gadgets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3441473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canterville/pseuds/canterville
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balem survives the disaster at his stockworks, and has emerged after years of dormancy. Jupiter, cognizant of her age, realizes that to continue to keep Earth out of his clutches, she’ll need to use RegenX-E. This request, however, is not one that Balem intends to grant lightly…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Iuppiter, fuge!

The survival of Balem Abrasax is a catastrophic miracle. Decades later, Jupiter Jones still wonders at how it could ever have happened. Then again, they say evil never dies. Not evil with a miracle cure for age. Time, otherwise, might have sorted Balem out thousands of years ago. Even now, it makes her dizzy to think of how ancient Balem is. These past years have no doubt been a blink to the immortal creatures that, at any given moment, might pass them by. Jupiter holds her breath as she steps into the glittering azure light that will take her into what she struggles not to think of as dire peril. The destruction of his stockworks is no doubt a fresh memory to Balem, and if it has taught him anything, it is that killing her will avail him nothing. So at least there's that.  
  
The feeling of weightlessness is one that Jupiter has never become accustomed to, and she still bristles when she sees Mr. Night, looking just like he did the night he brought her Balem’s demand that she abdicate. The rat splice stands straight, hands folded against the small of his back. As the emissary of Balem Abrasax, he’s accustomed to being the target of a certain measure of scorn, and as such, is entirely too unflappable to quail under Jupiter’s cold stare.  
  
"Your Majesty,” he begins with a flutter of frilled sleeves and a smile. “Words cannot express –”  
  
“Save it.” Night sucks on his buckteeth, but is quiet. It doesn’t last.  
  
“My lord Balem is pleased to have heard from Your Majesty after so long,” he says, as the shuttle ascends, still faster than anything the world as Jupiter knows it has ever seen. A new Sargorn pilots the shuttle, what with Greeghan long dead. She wonders if he knows, or cares about, the particulars of what became of his predecessor.  
  
“Sure, he is,” Jupiter mumbles, looking out the window as the earth begins to shrink away, as the clouds close in, blanketing the hundreds of thousands of lives over which she is custodian. But there’s grey in her hair, now, and she must be sure… Jupiter clenches a fist. The thought is a canker, and she owes it many sleepless nights. Are these billions of lives worth the sacrifice of a few hundred thousand? She was surprised when Balem deigned to respond to her FTL; he might wait, instead, and let time do his dirty work, but he had chosen otherwise. That makes her nervous, but she’s put Caine in touch with the Aegis in the event that the first primary of the House of Abrasax has licked his wounds enough to have another go at her inheritance.  
  
“I wonder,” Mr. Night begins, each syllable meticulously enunciated, and sharp enough that it jolts Jupiter from her contemplations. “I wonder,” Night begins again, “what Your Majesty hopes to ask of my lord.”  
  
“Then you can ask him, yourself,” Jupiter answers. Night opens his thin mouth, but she cuts across him. “ _After_ we’re done, here.”  
  
The rest of the journey passes in relative silence. There is the usual radio chatter, which merits a rumbling reply from the Sargorn helming the Shadow.  
  
“Quetzalk approaching with Her Majesty.” Balem’s clipper materializes out of the crushing blackness of space, stately and unscathed. Jupiter’s cold silence turns, just for a moment, to hushed awe. Some things never cease to be impressive. The ship is impossibly large, almost filling the vast obscurity, blocking out the twinkling of the distant stars. It cuts a grim profile, and Jupiter can’t help the thought that passes. _Suits him_. Mr. Night clears his throat, and almost seems to reconsider speaking when she glances from the window, back to him. She knows better than to hope for much.  
  
“I hope Your Majesty will not object to disembarking with me. This shuttle is needed elsewhere, and needn’t be hindered with landing.”  
  
“Sure thing."  
  
“Oh, most excellent. Your Majesty is _ever_ considerate,” Mr. Night warbles, offering a velvet-smothered arm. Jupiter just shakes her head and steps into the shimmering transport beam. Night chokes off what was almost an embarrassing squeak, and hurries in after her. “Thank you, Quetzalk, we’ll descend, now,” he calls to the Sargorn, who makes a gravelly humming noise in answer. The beam sets them down gently in the vestibule of Balem’s flagship, and Mr. Night dusts off his hands, though they are immaculately clean. “Welcome aboard, Your Majesty.”  
  
“Thanks… Listen, can you slow up on the ‘Your Majesty’ thing? Miss Jones is fine.” She doesn’t invite him to call her Jupe. It seems wrong, when she remembers how smugly he had delivered her family into the hands of a deranged planet-killer.  
  
“Of… Of course. Miss Jones. This way.” The clipper’s interior is as bare as she expected, but with its barrenness comes a solemn beauty, like the aisle before the altar of a church. Jupiter has never been one for Sunday Service, but she does have an appreciation for the breathless handsomeness of cathedrals. This place captures it as neatly as a bottled ship can capture the chaos of an ocean. Mr. Night’s voice echoes hollowly out as he asks her to follow him from the docking bay, into the belly of the beast. Their footsteps are similarly empty, but are just as quickly muffled in the close, twisting corridors that wait beyond the bay doors.  
  
Jupiter does all she can to memorize the path. She knows better than to ignore the possibility that she might soon find herself running for her life. Tricky to use gravity boots in here… After a remarkably protracted silence from Mr. Night, and a few more flights of stairs than Jupiter would have liked, they stop in front of a pair of tall, double-doors. They look to be made of brass, but likely aren’t, and they rumble as they part to admit her. It occurs to her that on the few occasions she has seen Balem, it has never been in a private space. Mr. Night takes only one step into the room.  
  
“My lord, I present Miss Jones, Recurrence of Sera –”  
  
“I am aware, Mr. Night.” Balem’s hoarse voice slithers in the dim. Something about it gets just under the surface of Jupiter's skin, like the tip of a needle that goes in, and out, but doesn't quite draw blood. Her heart plummets into the pit of her stomach. _This was a terrible idea_. He whispers, “leave us” and Mr. Night scurries out.  
  
Balem still cannot bear to look at her right away, it appears. He is standing, this time, facing a massive window that even now looks out upon the blue planet he covets. Behind him, and thus, between them, a pool of glimmering RegenX-E ripples. It looks so inviting that Jupiter starts to feel sick. Her boots clunk against the floor. Glass? Or stone? It’s difficult to tell. She flinches when the doors rumble shut behind her.  
  
“You should have gone to Kalique, instead,” Balem drawls, still without turning. It is remarkable how easily his voice carries, harsh and lighter than the smoke that rises from the barrel of a gun.  
  
“You’re right.” Jupiter concedes. She wants to take a step back, but holds her ground. Caine had protested this idea to begin with, but if she’s going to carry on as the inheritor of the Earth, she needs to navigate these waters. Balem has been too quiet. She cannot simply live her life ignorant of people like him watching, and waiting for an opportunity to snatch up the Earth and suck the life out of it. What is to stop Balem, once she grows old and passes on? Legalities? Legalities had not even been enough to put him away for attempting to kill her. She licks her lips, schooling her nerves. _Get your shit together_.  
  
“I should allow you to die.” Balem looks over his shoulder, silver glinting in his hair. It isn’t commiseration, that’s for damn sure. The incident at the stockworks had diminished Balem’s net worth considerably. Kalique had the power and RegenX-E to spare, now. Even that major setback could not exhaust the whole of Balem’s wealth. He might have restored himself at any time; it only takes seconds, and resources that he yet retains. Seconds, and thousands of lives. Still, Balem seems to do most things slowly. A silence stretches out between them before he speaks again. “Your life is a flicker,” he continues, every word like steel scraping stone, “a spark, with nothing to sustain it. It can be spent in an instant.” Jupiter catches a glimpse of his eyes, but she does not need to see them to know the haunted look in them. His fingertips stray to the ornate collar about his throat. Jupiter has had plenty of time to connect the dots, but it is difficult to feel much sympathy. Not for this twisted son of a bitch. Son of a… _Fuck it._  
  
“I didn’t come here to wax poetic about mortality.” That makes Balem turn, at last, and look at her.  
  
“Did you not?” He moves languidly, as only an immortal creature can, padding barefoot along the edge of the pool of RegenX-E. His gait is uneven; a limp is all he profited from their last encounter. “Time is running short, Jupiter, and you are without heirs.” His scoff is little better than a spiteful puff of breath. “How long would your children live? Your children’s children? I can wait.”  
  
“You sure?” Jupiter quips. “Seemed like you got pretty impatient, when you tried to force my abdication.” It’s more satisfying than it ought to be to watch Balem’s jaw tighten, and to look at the scar on his lip, and know that she gave it to him.  
  
“That is in the past,” he answers sharply, “and you had best consider your future.” Jupiter dares to glance away from him, just for a second, to look at the pool. He is close to her, now, if with caution, but enough that she must be wary. “I can give you what you need, Jupiter.” Her eyes are on him, again, steady and unyielding. It is more difficult to despise him when he looks at her the way he does. Pitiful, and desperate. If these were not his halls, if he was not assured in his domain, he might have looked lost, searching her for something that simply wasn’t there. He lifts a hand…  
  
“What’s the catch?” Balem’s jewelled fingers quiver, frozen in midair. Jupiter tries not to think of the last time. She’s more careful, now. She sure as hell won’t mention his godforsaken mother. He looks like a ghost, freckles standing out starkly against his skin, dappled across his stately nose and statelier cheekbones.  
  
“I want your time,” he breathes. Jupiter’s brows furrow.  
  
“Time?”  
  
“That is what you’ve come for, is it not? More time.” Her mouth goes dry, and the step she takes back from Balem is instinct. “This is not the fruit of your precious planet,” he says, as if that makes it better, “this is the means to save it awhile longer.” It looks like a hell-mouth, undulating, glittering blue. Jupiter’s chest gets tighter as her heartrate picks up, and Balem leans closer as if he can hear it beating. She puts her hands up, desperate for distance, and he catches them up in his. His touch is cold, and clammy, but his grip is firm. “All I ask is a year.”  
  
“And you’ll let me…” She can’t finish the sentence, doesn’t have to.  
  
“Yes,” he whispers. _This is dangerous, Jupe._ She can see the sparking instability in his pale eyes. For all she knows, he’s still furious about the stockworks, and plotting revenge. A year with Balem Abrasax? She might not live out the week. He’s still holding onto her hands. Jupiter grimaces, squeezing her eyes shut. Balem reads this as vulnerability, and pushes. “What are a few thousand lives when your life spares billions?” He cannot pretend to understand her desire to safeguard one planet, but he can exploit it. Jupiter swallows hard, and Balem squeezes her hands. It’s not encouraging, but curiously it's the first word that springs to mind. The breath she takes in to answer aches in her chest.  
  
“I’ll do it,” she says, at last. Balem releases her hands, and the smile that tugs at his too-full lips digs furrows into the corners of his mouth. It vanishes quickly. The look that crosses over Balem’s face isn’t quite cold, but Jupiter shudders. Just once. Just long enough to find a better way. There has to be a better way. She licks her lips, and what Balem says next almost makes her bite her tongue.  
  
“Take off your clothes.”  
  
“ _What?_ ” Jupiter splutters, backing away. “No. No, that is _not_ how this is going to work. You’re _leaving_.”  
  
“Jupiter.”  
  
“I said no.”  
  
“Then we have no agreement.” Jupiter opens her mouth to make another retort, but silence comes out. This is too much. She lets a few half-formed protests die on her tongue, all futile bids to defend herself.  
  
“You’re sick, Balem,” she mutters, at last, shaking her head. “This is sick.” He laughs at that, an almost painful sound that raises the hair on the back of Jupiter’s neck.  
  
“Well?” He makes a small gesture, which is either a dismissal or a come-on. Most likely the latter, which makes Jupiter’s stomach churn. She takes a knee, and begins unstrapping her boots, while Balem stares at her. He continues staring as she carries them close to the edge of the pool, setting them down. Jupiter makes a point of ignoring this. She has survived worse, and more dangerous. This is nothing. This is her body, and a slimeball like Balem Abrasax will not make her uncomfortable in it. She thinks for an awful moment that she hears his breath catch when she begins unbuttoning her blouse.  
  
“How does this work, anyway?” she asks. Anything to break the silence. Balem limps to the console beside the pool without answering, a stroking of digital keys making the room hum.  
  
“We can discuss that later.”  
  
“Kalique had attendants.” She catches Balem smirking out of the corner of her eye.  
  
“Of course she does. She likes to be watched.”  
  
“Ugh. I don’t.”  
  
“Clearly.”  
  
Complaint aside, Jupiter still shrugs off her blouse, and has to suppress a sigh when her bra comes off. She keeps her back to Balem, but she is damned certain she can feel his eyes on her, even from the console where he stands. She hesitates before she unbuttons her jeans. Oh, no. She unzips, with as surreptitious a glance downward as she can manage, to peek at her panties. Oh _no_. Why’d she have to wear the granny panties? Moreover, why does she care? It takes more than one deep breath through her nose before she manages to pull off her jeans, floral-patterned underwear exposed. What Balem makes of them, if anything, is a mystery that Jupiter isn’t certain she ever wants to solve. By now, all she knows is that this situation is probably one of the worst things that she has ever become involved in, and she had once been the ball in a game of intergalactic keep-away. It’s better not to think about Caine Wise, so she forces the thought out, and slips out of her panties.  
  
“I can get in the…” she sets her lips in a hard line. “The bath now, right?” She glances at Balem, and a chill goes through her when she discovers his attention remains rapt on her. She can feel him tracing the curves of her body, drinking in her imperfections, greedily cataloguing every birthmark and blemish. There’s a beat of silence. Then another. Jupiter begins to suspect he has forgotten to speak for staring. Her suspicions are confirmed when he only nods. “Fucking creep,” she murmurs, rubbing her upper arms. Gooseflesh slithers over her skin, but it is scarcely chilly. The floor is warm, in fact. It might even have felt nice, if not for Balem’s persistent gazing and the fact that the pool before her had been filled at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. She still remembers the weight of the canister in her hands. One hundred souls. One hundred more. It’s dizzying to think about the numbers. She makes it all the way to the edge before she has to stop, teetering there. That sight, at least, is still worse than looking at Balem. His eyes no longer play over her body, and he stands with his hands folded in front of him. More curious, now, than anything. It occurs to her that he may well be thinking of his mother, and… Oh, God, no. He’s coming toward her. Trapped between Balem and the now-rumbling pool of RegenX-E, Jupiter covers herself, unsure whether it’s easier to tolerate him behind her, or in front. Before she can decide, his clammy hands are on her shoulders, and his breath licks at her ear. She shivers, desperate to ignore the susurrations of silk against her backside.  
  
“Look at it,” he whispers. Jupiter almost glances over her shoulder at him, but her eyes are beginning to sting with tears. The last thing she wants is for Balem to see them. Her heart is beating painfully fast. _I have to protect them_. “These are the waters of life,” he says, a curious reverence coming into his ailing voice. Jupiter wants none of it.  
  
“You’re wrong. This is human sacrifice.”  
  
“This is _mercy_.” His long fingers tighten their grip on her shoulders. “ _Save them_ , Jupiter.”  
  
She closes her eyes, steeling herself, and takes her first step into the water. It tingles, somewhat in the way that an exfoliant does, and her skin immediately feels tauter. Behind her, Balem takes in his breath, but says nothing as Jupiter takes another hesitant step, and then another. Soon, she’s in the water to her waist, and shaking. _This is wrong_. The tears are coming freely, now, as she feels the dead all around her. This is a mass grave, and she's standing in it. She feels their squandered potential in the resistance the water gives her every step, and she does not notice the soft falling of fabric that might otherwise have alerted her to the fact that Balem had shrugged off his shirt. It isn’t until the water was up past her navel that she hears the heavy _clang_ of Balem’s gorget as it hit the floor. She turns in time to see him stripped, descending into the water. _This is wrong_.  
  
The ripples that come in his wake touch against Jupiter like a dissonant chord, breaking on her stomach. She’s speechless at the sight of him, brazenly naked in a way that reminds her just for a moment of Kalique, shameless in her newly restored body. Balem might have been beautiful if she did not feel as if her heart was sizzling away in her own stomach acid. If she did not know, already, what she is to him. He is lean, thin as a rail, and dusted with constellations of freckles. The age that has greyed his temples has yet to diminish his body. There’s not a mark on his throat, no evidence of the wound that ruined his voice, but that matters less to Jupiter, now, than the feeling of death all around them. She is too full of revulsion to protest to his presence. He moves easily in the water, dragging his fingers through it, just to feel the resistance. When words come to her at last, they are brief, and tremulous.  
  
“I feel sick.” Balem comes close enough to touch her, but doesn’t.  
  
“It will pass.” Jupiter scrubs at her face, but the droplets that run down her cheeks from her wet hands make her stomach roil, and she claps a hand over her mouth. _This is wrong_. Balem hooks his fingers in the crook of her elbow, coaxing her hand away from her mouth. With his free hand, he strokes along the curve of her throat. He leans close, almost resting his cheek against hers. “Hold your breath.” Blind with panic, Jupiter takes in a breath, and does all she can to relax, and allow Balem’s guidance. She sinks under the water, into darkness, and her whole body sparks alive. If Balem thought to hold her down and drown her, she would hardly have resisted, just to die in such bliss. It was like a first taste of sweetness. A first breath of fresh air. It lasts as long as a flash of lightning, but the fear is gone. Her lungs are screaming for air by the time she realizes she needs to come up out of the water. She surfaces gasping and unable to speak. Everything feels new, brighter. Balem’s eyes are more beautiful than she has ever seen them. In her euphoria, she almost wants to kiss him, beg him to touch. Her skin is hyper-sensitive to the nectar, to Balem, so close, and her hands are grasping, hungry. She catches his face in both hands, staring into him, searching as he is so wont to search her.  
  
"I..." There are galaxies in his irises. Just for an instant, she can see the thousands on thousands of years that have passed him by. The worlds those eyes have seen. He blinks, slowly and only once, before the spell breaks. The euphoria vanishes. His skin is just skin, his irises just irises. The universe she saw in him shrinks away, leaving only intimations of its wonder behind. Jupiter pushes Balem away, staggering back from him.  
  
“I need out. Oh, _God_ , I need… I need to dry off. Clothes. I need clothes.” She begins to march determinedly toward the edge of the pool, raking her fingers through her hair, dark again, as if grey had never begun to touch it. “I’m going to be sick,” she mutters again. Balem only watches. After some deliberation, he strokes the node behind his ear. The sound of Mr. Night’s voice is particularly unwelcome in this chamber, but it rings out clearly enough.  
  
"You summoned me, my lord?”  
  
“Bring a change of clothes for Miss Jones,” he commands idly.  
  
“As you will, my lord.”  
  
“Ah… And she will need quarters arranged.”  
  
“Of course, my lord.” Another stroke of the node silences Mr. Night for the time being, and while his attention never strayed from Jupiter, it now returns in force. She is seated on the edge of the pool, covering her breasts with one arm, her face buried in her hand.  
  
“All those people…”  
  
“Jupiter.” Her head snaps up, her eyes renewed and vibrant and _burning_.  
  
"There has to be a better way,” she declares, and it seems to take Balem aback. His gaze flicks down, just for a second, before he can stand to look at her again. He makes to speak, but when she lifts a hand, it silences him. Later, Jupiter will wonder why, but for now she’s glad of it. “I don’t want to talk. I’m stuck with you for a year, right? It can wait.” Balem drifts toward her without a word, not yet submerging himself to shatter the surface, changed and restored. Looking up at her, leaning on the edge of the pool, he looks youthful anyway.  
  
“It can wait.”


	2. The First Seven Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jupiter adjusts to her newly rejuvenated body, while Balem passively avoids the everliving fuck out of her... Until he doesn't.

_I need a shower_. Jupiter can’t stop rubbing at her arms. She’s dry, and clothed, but her skin still crawls with RegenX-E. There is death underneath her skin, and she feels as if she’ll never be clean again. Her quarters aren’t far from the bathing chamber, but it feels like miles. Mr. Night, perhaps twigging on to the simple fact that he makes Jupiter distinctly uncomfortable, had mercifully sent servitants to bring her clothes and escort her to her room. Her room, which might well be the place where she is to spend the better part of this year. Jupiter’s stomach lurches, but she manages a polite smile to the not-quite-comprehending servitants before they leave her.  
  
The quarters prepared for her are cavernous. Dim, and more spacious than anything she’s ever called hers. Vaulted ceilings. There are vaulted ceilings. She isn’t certain what possessed her unlikely host to have a ship made with quarters that look like overlarge prison cells, but at least there’s room to pace. There was almost room enough to sprint from one side of the chamber to the other. The bed sprawls in one corner, laden with sumptuous black sheets, and sheer, sequined curtains. There are the usual amenities taken to excess. The bedside table hovers off the ground, as does the armchair, and the windows provide a view of endless, breathtaking space. Even that can’t keep Jupiter from retreating into the bathroom, praying for a shower. It’s every bit as ostentatious as the rest, all sleek black and brass and… Impossible to figure out. Of course. There’s no obvious showerhead, no faucet to turn on. There’s only the shallow tub, and the drain to convince her that this is meant to be a shower, at all.  
  
“Um…” She has barely to utter her confusion before a bright voice fills the room, leaving her to stifle a curse, instead.  
  
_–Greetings, Your Majesty! I am Tels, your Chamber Presence. Shall I turn the water on?_ Still recovering from the startle, Jupiter only nods, which seems to be enough for Tels. Water begins to bead on the ceiling, falling like rain into the shallow basin below. Even the showers are over-the-top. Jupiter reaches out a hand, testing the temperature, only to startle at another interjection from Tels.  
  
_–I hope it’s warm enough?_  
  
“Just fine… Thank you.”  
  
_–Enjoy your shower, Majesty._  
  
“Yeah.” Jupiter can’t get out of her clothes quickly enough, every inch of her still prickling and uncomfortable and _wrong_.  
  
The water is perfect, but not cleansing, and more than once she has to ask for it to get a little hotter, no, a little hotter, please. Her skin reddens, just a touch, and eventually her fingertips prune up, but she stays under the cascading water, as if she could somehow rinse off this frankly terrible decision. Regret comes to her in sharp pangs that almost penetrate the sickening numbness that rules her soaking body, just as difficult to wash away. All those people… Was it right to wash their sacrifice away? Her guilt?  
  
When at last she can bear to step out of the shower, steaming and still so filthy, tiny golden lights materialize like sparkling fireflies, and bear the wet, the condensation, to places unknown. Just as suddenly as they appear, they melt away, leaving Jupiter bone dry, as if a droplet of water had never touched her. She pulls her clothes back on, but it’s a chore. Once it’s done, Jupiter arrives at two conclusions: first, that she has had enough, and second, that she does not intend to leave this room. For the better part of first week, she doesn’t sleep in it, either, but not for a lack of trying. She also sees neither hide nor immaculate hair of Balem. His absence proves essential in scrubbing away the memory of his clammy hands on her shoulders, of sinking into the RegenX-E. She spends entirely too much time in front of a hovering mirror, naked and bewildered, as the weight of her decision begins to bear down upon her. Her own body is a stranger. She cries only the once. It is ugly, and thoroughly upsets Tels the Chamber Presence.  
  
_–Oh, what can I do, Your Majesty? Please, allow me to assist you. I can manifest tissues at your request. Please don’t cry_.  
  
Jupiter isn’t certain how clear a grasp the Presence has on gestures, but she waves it off, and it’s quiet, aside from the sound of her sobbing. She declines supper (again) to sort through all the absent things that, before, she had thought herself stuck with. Old imperfections, vanished, the first beginnings of wrinkles, erased. There used to be a thin scar on her left forearm; Balem’s doing, a reminder of his savagery, now gone, just like that. Who would recognize her at home? Even after a year? It is as if the decades that greyed in her hair had never been, though she remembers. It could just as easily have been a dream. She has the mirror removed sometime after what feels like midnight on the second day. Time is different, on the clipper, where ticks and clicks serve better than earthly time.  
  
Given the hour, or what the hour feels like, Jupiter is surprised when it is oily Mr. Night who comes to take the mirror away. If there is anyone with as much to attend to as Balem, it is surely Chicanery Night, who may, at any given point, have even _more_ to do. Jupiter thinks for a moment about asking him how long he’s been doing this; it’s amazing he hasn’t snapped, but she’s not interested in getting terribly cosy with the rat splice. He occasionally smells of wine and spirits (possibly Dark Grey, from Aquarii; Caine had brought her some, once, and she had hallucinated for a week). Still, whatever Mr. Night might _really_ be seeing, he never looks harried. On the third day, Night comes knocking again to say that some of her ‘earthly affects’ have been retrieved and, more ominously, that her ‘earthly affairs’ are ‘all in order, Miss Jones.’ She thinks of asking after Balem, but remembers too well how he watched her, how his breath flickered against her skin. _Nope_. The rest of the day is spent on unpacking, instead, and another shower that goes on longer than it ought. Night checks in on her once, to give her pre-portal meds, and the expanding universe outside, for a moment, is blinding gold and beautiful.  
  
It’s only after the fourth day that she can stand to send Caine more than an anxious FTL to assure him that all was well. Sort of. Now his facsimile paces in her quarters, which, while spacious, seem to cloister him. He is quiet, while she explains, but she can see his frown deepening. God, had she even thought about him, at all?  
  
“So… That’s how it is, huh?” Caine says, at last. Jupiter only notices how he can’t quite stand to look at her.  
  
“I had to do _something_ , Caine, I’m sorry.”  
  
“Now? Jupe…”  
  
“I fucked up,” she admits. “I was scared, and I made the deal. I need to figure this out. This year could be my chance to do that.”  
  
“This is dangerous,” Caine warns. “Balem is dangerous.”  
  
“I can handle Balem. I know what to do if things turn sour.”  
  
“I hope so.” Another silence drew itself out between them, leaving Jupiter to look down at her feet. Caine’s jaw tightens. “It’s probably a bad idea to stay in touch like this, while you’re here,” he adds.  
  
“Caine –”  
  
“I need time. Seems like you’ve got plenty of it on your hands, now.” He’s gone in a flurry of pixels and a rustling of wings. Jupiter flops onto her back. She knows he’ll come back if she asks, he always does, but she also can’t bear the look of disappointment he fixes on her. She buries her face in her hands.  
  
“ _Fuck_.”  
  
_–Would you like me to summon a servitant? Your Majesty might like some wine._  
  
“Put a sock in it, Tels.”  
  
_–Your Majesty?_  
  
“Be _quiet_. Please.” And Jupiter sulks and stews for the better part of the fifth day. She still can’t sleep. The covers are too soft, too sleek, and Tels the Chamber Presence is determined that no Entitled should sleep in anything less than anti-gravity. It takes another shower before inspiration strikes. “All right, Tels. I know what I want.”  
  
_–It is my pleasure to serve, Your Majesty._  
  
“I need cleaning supplies.” Jupiter fancies that she can hear Tels the Chamber Presence gasp.  
  
_–Is your room insufficiently cleanly? I can have servitants –_  
  
“ _No_ , Tels. I just need to scrub a toilet, all right?” She isn’t sure what good it was to explain to a disembodied voice, but she goes on. “It helps me to think. I need a scrub brush, some gloves, a bucket. Disinfectant. Can you make it happen?”  
  
_–Of course, Your Majesty! I am delighted to serve!_ Tels chirps. The servitants arrive in good time, looking confused as servitants can, but part with the supplies easily enough. It feels either late, or early, when Jupiter takes a scrub brush to the pristine and frankly gauche-looking toilet in the bathroom attached to her chambers. It’s mindless, mechanical action, and for awhile, it puts a stop to her racing thoughts, long enough that she can attempt to sort them out. She still can’t fathom the cost of her fresh skin, the toll this year will take. Never mind Balem, who she can trust only about as much as she might trust a scorpion. She dwells longest on Caine, who she hurt so carelessly, and on the planet for whose sake she did it. _Well, you’re in it now._ She let out a sigh, and depressed the switch that let the water out into the vastness of space. Or something. Pondering that took the edge off the stress that has been sitting on her shoulders since she sent that first – in retrospect, _stupid_ – FTL. The distraction doesn’t make her feel entirely better, but it was a help to do something familiar. Normal. If scrubbing the bejesus out of a glorified space-shitter was normal.  
  
The fifth day aboard the clipper she spent asking Tels questions, relearning the lay of the land. She hadn’t kept her head in the sand for all these years, but it wasn’t as if she had many real resources when it came to intergalactic research. Earth was hers, yes, but she could make no profit on it. Her stomach roils at the idea. She had Caine, and Stinger, both, but there was only so much she could learn from them. And so, Tels. The more she catches up, however, the more one question presses against the back of her mind, itching in the back of her throat.  
  
“Hey, Tels?”  
  
– _Your Majesty?_  
  
“Call me Jupe.”  
  
– _Jupe?_  
  
“Yeah. Listen, I have one more question: Can you tell me how Balem survived the incident at the Jupiter refinery?”  
  
– _I’m terribly sorry. My lord Balem has ordered that information sealed_. Because of course he had. Jupiter scowls.  
  
“Can you say why?”  
  
– _I am sorry_.  
  
“Hey, don’t worry it. It was a long shot, anyway.” No one seemed able to get that answer for her. It had been the first question she had asked when Caine came with the news. _How?_ Balem Abrasax had re-emerged after nearly thirty years years following the destruction of the Jupiter refinery. _But I saw him fall_. Perhaps it had been foolish to hope that she might find answers in the belly of the beast. Not that the creature himself had reared his head in days. Not that she has looked for him. Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow, she’ll venture out, into this brassy underbelly, and start testing the dragon’s scales for a weak spot, a way inside. Sometimes you’ve got to lay in the bed you make. No more sulking.  
  
The rest of the sixth day Jupiter spends rearranging her quarters, making it clear that she means to uphold her end of this devil’s bargain, claiming the space. There isn’t much to move around, but Tels is endlessly accommodating, and the time passes a little easier. The overwhelming urge to shower, and shower again is less, and that night, Jupiter manages to fall asleep. The restlessness that stirred her before is not quite absent, but mastered. Her sleep is dreamless, and deep. Tels greets her cheerily when she wakes into the seventh day.  
  
– _Good afternoon, Jupe! So glad you’re awake!_  
  
“Tels. Tels, you gotta tone it down.” Jupiter scrubs at her eyes, raking her fingers through her hair, catching them here and there where sleep has snarled it.  
  
_–My apologies. My lord Balem is pinging you. He wishes a meeting._  
  
“Aw, shit.”  
  
_–Shall I tell him you’ve declined?_ She lets out a groan, sitting up in bed.  
  
“No. No, I’ll see him.”  
  
And Balem Abrasax materializes in her bedroom.  
  
“Oh shit!” Jupiter scrambles to pull the covers up over herself. “Shit, I didn’t mean _now_!” Balem observes this outburst with serpentine indifference, and speaks only once Jupiter has the covers pulled up to her neck, glowering up at him.  
  
“You look well,” he rasps. “And you’ve slept at last, I see.”  
  
“Can this wait?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Has something happened?”  
  
“No.” Balem is not truly in the room, but his image moves to the end of the bed, and sits. She’s not sure how, but the bed seems to shift a little under his weight. “My time remains a commodity,” he explains.  
  
“Yeah? And what about my time?”  
  
“Your time belongs to me.” Balem’s smile is forced, but it strikes Jupiter more as if the expression is one he doesn’t quite understand how to make. It makes her want to bury her head underneath the covers and never come back out, but she cannot shrink from him.  
  
“… What do you want?” He is silent for a long time, and looks away from her, out the window. Perfectly still. Jupiter can barely see him breathe. It goes on awhile longer, and she begins to wonder if there is a problem with his facsimile. It’s frustrating to look at him and see no trace of their previous conflict. His limp is gone, the scar on his lip, erased; his body is a blank slate, and he does not deserve it.  
  
“I trust,” he began at last, “that you have been treated well?” Jupiter gives a wordless nod. “I hear from Tels that you have had questions.” Peril begins to simmer just underneath the hard edges of Balem’s whispering, and his errant gaze slides from the distant stars to pin itself on her.  
  
“Is that a problem?”  
  
“If you are careful what you ask? No. But you have been careless, Jupiter.” His long fingers curl into a fist that, for a moment, she forgets cannot touch her. So, she had found a soft spot, already. Not enough to capitalize on, but sensitive enough that Balem, who does not stir for just anything, has turned his head. Better to feign ignorance, for the time being. Jupiter opens her mouth to speak, but Balem lets out a hiss – _don’t –_ that startles her quiet. “Tomorrow, we will arrive on Deimos. I have an alcazar on its dark side. You will want to see it.” Jupiter only frowns, not bothering to mask her confusion. “Did you think I was angry?” He tilts his head, another of those mechanical smiles pulling at the unwilling corners of his mouth. He runs the pads of his fingers over the node behind his ear, and scatters from the room as if he had been made of dust. Jupiter exhales, not realizing until just then that she had been holding her breath.  
  
“…What the hell?”  
  


* * *

  
Jupiter’s room fades away – odd, how it feels so much as though it now belongs to her – and Balem is alone. His rest quarters are small, and bare; he never stays there long. The windowless dark is for sleeping, and sleep yields no profit. It is fitting, then, to fill this place with useless things. And so, he dwells on them. It is effortless and impossible to forget her, too look at that face for too long. Even when his wounded industry demanded his attention, he could not but pause to reach for reports of her activity. Jupiter Jones has taken another shower. Jupiter Jones is weeping. Caine Wise is in contact with Jupiter Jones. Jupiter Jones is scrubbing the latrine. All this, and the sight of her is unbearable. He remembers her shrinking away as he falls into the abyss, the hurricane gushing in, his mouth overflowing with the taste of blood and failure. He remembers her dripping with nectar and smiling. He remembers resting his head in her lap, and trusting her not to kill him. He remembers her begging. His hands tremble.  
  
The timing is perhaps worst of all. Seraphi had ceased to count her birthdays toward the end, but Balem remembers them too, even better than he recalls his own. Hers has passed them by, one with Jupiter's, as Seraphi is always, will always be one with her. It stirs, in him, a weakness, one that he has barely survived, one that he must kill before it dies inside him, and the rot infests his body. He had been too slow, before, to acclimate himself to the way his blood turned to poison when he looked at her. Not again. The new refinery is well underway, the others are already running at full capacity, and Jupiter Jones is his for a year. All that he has lost can be made new again. Restless, he paces in the heavy shadows of his barren chambers, sleep clamouring about him, memory pressing closer, ambition at his ear. His heart is pounding.  
  
The First Primary of the House of Abrasax settles into the softness of his bed, and muses; he lets his eyes slip closed, and muses, still.

_  
Oh, my mother. What do you think of me, now?_

  
And he wonders if Jupiter dreams of dying like he does.


	3. In an Alcazar, Darkly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balem brings Jupiter to Deimos, a planet half-consumed by eternal night. A meeting is arranged. Requests are made.

Deimos hangs in its orbit, dangling over a glass of red wine so dark that it was almost black. The taste, which Titus would have sniffed at and called _caustic_ at best, or _noxious_ if he was feeling charitable, rolls richly over Balem’s tongue, coating the back of his throat. Harsh as it is, its simmering soothes the damage that turns his voice to broken glass, his shouts to molten metal. Nothing can compare to the rawness, there, that threatens, always, to silence him. It tastes almost like death, which lit on his lips, once, then again, and has stayed with him, since. The planet, meanwhile, rolls on its side, one half always burning while the other languishes ever in the shade. Its merciless, silver sun has proved a source of tremendous power, fuelling not only the refineries below the surface, but the ones on its dark side. Balem does not keep useless things, after all. Not like Titus who thrives on them, not like Kalique who hides in them. What was a dwelling without purpose? What was a planet that had no part in this grand dance towards annihilation and eternity? That dissolved like a poison pearl into wine? Opulence is insufficient. He raises his glass, Deimos two-faced and dangling over the red-black surface. As he drinks it down, as it sears his throat, his thoughts turn to Jupiter. Perhaps she, too, gazes on Deimos, though he expects she makes something very different of the sight of sun and planet staring endlessly into each other. If he knows anything at all about her, it is that she cannot look out at the stars without wonder. Just as mother did. Like a fool child, still arrogant enough to believe they can number all the stars. He drinks again, and deeply, to drive those thoughts away.  
  


_Don’t you think it’s beautiful?_

_  
_He has to drain the glass, then pour another to shake her off, ghostly residue settling like sand into the lowermost chamber of an hourglass. The centuries well up inside him, aching in his newly rejuvenated bones, and it feels so much as if –  
  
“My lord Balem?” Chicanery Night is an unusually welcome distraction. At his intrusion, Balem beckons, and his emissary scuttles to him.  
  
“Mr. Night.” Charity is not one among Balem’s preferred virtues, but it has its place. He offers a glass of that strong, strong wine to the rat splice, who cradles it in his white fingers as if it were made of crystalized RegenX-E. A taste for syrupy too-strong wine is all they share in common.  
  
“You are too kind to me, my lord,” Night warbles. “I have news. The report from Zalintyre is in. The planet’s resources have been processed, and the re-seeding process has commenced.”  
  
“Drink.” Balem lifts his own glass to his lips, and Night gladly does the same, quite possibly aware that this particular vintage now sells for more than even the most promising rat splice. That this gives him no pause likely contributes to his continued survival. A _ping_ interrupts, but goes ignored.  
  
“There’s more,” Night continues, after a swallow, swirling the thick, dark wine, admiring its fine legs. “An FTL from the Harvestmaster.” Balem uncoils himself from his chaise, silent on bare feet. Mr. Night falls into step alongside him, practiced at it, after all these years.  
  
“What do they have to say?"  
  
“They await your command eagerly, my lord. It has been too long, already. The reapers grow restless.” The mention of the reapers alone is enough to incite Mr. Night to drink again.  
  
“Arrange a meeting.”  
  
“It has been seen to. If I may ask, my lord –” Balem directs a cold look at Mr. Night which gives him a fraction of a second’s pause, before he goes on. “What of Miss Jones?” Balem’s lips press into a hard line, tamping down on a shout.  
  
“What of her?” Mr. Night begins sucking his teeth, eyes darting nervously between Balem and the glass of wine in his hand, as if he can think of nothing else but draining the glass to forget this entire situation. Balem keeps him pinned under a hard stare, then lifts his own glass, spilling the contents out onto Mr. Night’s meticulously polished shoes. A beat of silence passes, and another splash of wine splatters the otherwise immaculate floor as the rat splice empties his glass onto his own feet. A short-lived chuckle from Balem breaks the uneasy silence.  
  
“Forgive me, Lord Balem,” says Night, briskly. “It was a foolish question.”  
  
“Very foolish,” he agrees, and the moment is forgotten. “Has Quetzalk arrived on Orus?”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
“Intercepted?”  
  
“It seems _unlikely_ , my lord.”  
  
“We must be certain, Mr. Night. There can be no mistakes.” Balem’s grip tightens on the stem of his glass, mercifully empty, and colluding with him to conceal the tremor in his hands. If Mr. Night notices, he has the wisdom to say nothing of it.  
  
“I will have words with my contacts on Orus,” the rat splice says, keeping the topic away from Balem’s whitening knuckles as the First Primary of the House of Abrasax ignores another _ping_.  
  
“That will be all. You’ll accompany me when we meet with the Harvestmaster.” That made his emissary squirm just a little, scuffing a fine (if somewhat sticky) shoe on the floor.  
  
“At your pleasure, my lord.” Night bows, and is about to take his leave when another whisper snags itself on his ear.  
  
“Mr. Night?” He turns halfway around to look at Balem, who glances to the pool of wine on the floor. It’s peculiar how such an ancient creature can, at times, still look so childlike. Balem toes the edge of the spill, mindful not to actually _step_ in the wine, studying his distorted image in the glistening substance. “Have someone clean this up.”  
  
“Yes. At once.” And with the clicking of thick-heeled shoes, Balem is alone again. Under surveillance, perhaps, but as alone as a member of the House of Abrasax can be. Someone is always watching. Or paranoia is the lot of their House as much as wealth and unnatural death is. He ruminates on that only for a moment or two before a third _ping_ disturbs him. Tels the Chamber Presence, it appears, has taught Jupiter Jones how to reach him. A teaching that Jupiter has taken very much to heart. 

 

  
_Jupiter Jones is pinging you…_

_… Jupiter Jones is attempting to contact…_

_Jupiter –_

_Are you sure you want to block this frequency?_

_You have blocked Jupiter Jones._

 

* * *

 

 – _You have been blocked. I do not believe Lord Balem wishes to speak with you, Jupe.  
  
_ “Well, Lord Balem can eat a dick.” Tels the Chamber Presence lets out a sound not unlike a snicker, which is both surprising, and suggests that it knows something Jupiter does not. She folds her arms over her chest. _Yeah. So this is brilliant._ Since her dip in RegenX-E, none of her own clothes fit quite right, and when she requested more… She ought to have expected the gowns, in retrospect, and the servitants determined to dress her. ‘Casual’ didn’t seem to be a word that any one of the Abrasax Primaries knew. Had these belonged to Balem’s mother? Had he even sent them? It was only after everything had ended, and she had been returned safely home, that Jupiter began to wonder if all the dresses she had been stuffed into before had once belonged to Seraphi Abrasax. It still makes her squirm. The former matriarch of the House of Abrasax seems to hang around her shoulders, so close it’s how Jupiter imagines the touch of a ghost might feel. A ghost that could slip in beneath her skin if only she would let it. A ghost she could become. She shakes off the chill that settles on her shoulders.  
  
“Hey, Tels?”  
  
– _Yes, Jupe?  
  
_ “Can you tell me where I can find Balem? If he won’t answer, I’ll hunt him down.”  
  
– _Observation Deck A-36. I can provide a map.  
  
_ “Yeah... That’d probably be good.”  
  
– _It is a long way.  
  
_ “That’s all right. I could use the walk.” Jupiter heaves a sigh, certain that the ship has restricted corridors and secrets to stumble on that, frankly, she did not want to find. The clipper might not have had the bellyful of horrors that the stockworks did, but she could not think of it as not somehow complicit in the murder of planets. But she did need that walk. Jupiter tightens her bootlaces, opens Tels’ map, and ventures out into the black-blasted bronze hallways in search of the last man in the ‘verse she ever thought she’d try to find on purpose. The map is holographic, glimmering blue, and easier to use than she had been expecting. It also draws such rapt attention that she doesn’t see Chicanery Night until she walks directly into him. Her map flickers for a moment or two and the waifish emissary of Balem Abrasax stumbles with as much dignity as he can manage.  
  
“Oh! Miss Jones! Forgive me,” he says, righting himself. “I am surprised to see you, ah, _outside_ your room.” He straightens his coat, tucking a sheave under his arm. His hair is tousled and askew, but this, he fails to notice from beneath his deep brows.  
  
“That’s not a problem, is it?”  
  
“Not at all. You are our guest.” Mr. Night looks her over, once, wrinkling his upturned nose. “The dresses…?”  
  
“Not exactly my style.”  
  
“Ah. I will see what my people can do to accommodate. I confess, we did not anticipate your stay, and as you remain Entitled, we could not dress you in a manner unsuited to your station… Perhaps we misread the situation.” Mr. Night pauses, wringing his chalky hands. Jupiter wonders who ‘we,’ is exactly. “I hope you are not looking for Lord Balem,” Mr. Night begins, somewhat uneasy. Jupiter’s lips press into a firm line. That little rat-man knows all. “He is preparing for a meeting. Perhaps I can persuade Miss Jones to disembark with me, instead? The approach to Deimos is quite exhilarating.” Jupiter weighs her options, while Mr. Night watches her expression, dark eyes glistening wetly in deep sockets.  
  
“Can you not talk about me in the third person? It’s kinda freaking me out.”  
  
“My apologies. Will you join me to the planet? It will be to your benefit to have time to settle in once we’ve arrived at my lord’s alcazar.”  
  
“If I come along, will you do something for me?”  
  
“Gladly.”  
  
“Let Balem know I’m not fond of being blocked.”  
  
“Very well.” Chicanery Night is going to do no such thing, but it’s kind of him to pretend. “I might send him a message,” he lies, ornately insincere. “He has yet to block me.” Night’s smile is just smug enough to make Jupiter wonder. “If you are prepared, you may accompany me straight away, unless, Miss, you might prefer to fetch some things from your quarters.” Jupiter mulls it over for a second, squinting at her map.  
  
“We’ll pass by it on the way to the shuttle, right?”  
  
“Ah. Yes. We will, indeed. Shall we? There is so much to do on the planet, I’m afraid I must ask a little haste of you, Miss Jones.”  
  
“I just need to stick my head in for a second.” This makes Mr. Night frown, but he doesn’t question.  
  
“Of course,” he says. “Please,” he continues, and beckons for Jupiter to follow. It isn’t a long walk back to her chambers, and true to her word, she only pokes her head in.  
  
“Hey, Tels?”  
  
– _How may I assist you?_ The Chamber Presence’s warm voice chimes immediately.  
  
“I’m on my way out. I wanted to say thanks.”  
  
– _Thanks?  
  
_ “Yeah. You’ve been a great help.” The Presence is quiet for a moment or two, as though Jupiter has, perhaps, confused it.  
  
– _You are… Very welcome. Yes. You are welcome. I am happy to serve.  
  
_ “I’ll see you later! I think.”  
  
– _Safe travels, Jupe!_ Mr. Night frowns at the exchange, but maintains his manicured silence. No doubt, he has seen far stranger things in his time. Jupiter resists the urge to ask, and the only thing that breaks the silence is the humming of the clipper around them, and the hollow _click, click, click_ of Night’s boots. Curiosity almost gets the better of her as they approach the shuttle bay, but the sight of so many gilded ships strikes her dumb. They hang in the air, all smooth lines, suspended effortlessly as fish in water. There is nothing, it seems, between them and the void, an invisible field protecting them from the merciless silence outside. Mr. Night is completely unfazed by the sight. The shuttles that to her still look astoundingly massive, are, to him, trifles. A hulking Sargorn meets them, letting out a rumbling trill in confirmation of Mr. Night’s shuttle request, beckoning them to follow.  
  
The shuttle windows, honeycombed like the eyes of some insect, offer little by way of a view, but Mr. Night gestures out one at the planet below – if below was quite the right word. Time and direction were blurred in space. She might have been aboard the clipper for months, already, without knowing it, if not for Tels the Chamber Presence.  
  
“My lord’s alcazar, as you may know, is on the dark side of Deimos. There. The planet became tidal-locked some millennia ago. Very inhospitable.” Jupiter peers out the window at the swirling storms that trouble the dark half of Deimos’ surface. “The storms are frequent, but, of course they are nothing to the hurricane on Your Majesty’s namesake, though they can become quite violent.” At the slight concern that creases Jupiter’s brows, Night goes on. “We are perfectly safe, however. We’ll pass through the Eye, there, without interference from the weather.” He gestures below at a hoop that looks like one of the receiving portals on Orus, giving Jupiter no time to wonder at its workings before he goes on. “My lord Balem has an aptitude for harnessing storms. Between them and the constant sunlight on the other side, the power Deimos generates is quite substantial.”  
  
“And the lightning?” Flashes of light leap from cloud to cloud, from cloud to ground like neurons firing between synapses.  
  
“Nothing our shields cannot deflect.” Mr. Night’s thin smile is almost encouraging, but for the wine on his breath. The Sargorn at the helm, this one with glossy blue-black scales, lets out a gravelly chuckle.  
  
“We’ll not be struck by lightning, today,” they said, prophetic in their certainty, but still not entirely encouraging.  
  
“I hope not,” Jupiter mumbles, and the pilot laughs again, yellow eyes dancing.  
  
“Have confidence. Even the weather bends to the will of the Entitled.” Mr. Night lets out an appreciative huff of breath, but speaks up, when he cannot be seen to agree.  
  
“Mind what you say, Mr. Axolorin,” he chides, and the great lizard shakes their head, ruffling their wings in a way that for a painful moment reminds Jupiter of Caine, who this far has remained out of touch. Not that she can bring herself to call for him. She can’t stew over that for long, stirred from thought by another rumbling declaration from Axolorin.  
  
“And so we go,” they announce, and the shuttle dips into the turbulent atmosphere of Deimos, like a spark leaping into the night sky. The small vessel passes through the twinkling Eye as easily as a master’s thread loops through the eye of a needle, and the storm flashes around them. The clouds press in on all sides, close and tenebrous. Thunder roars, deafening, but incapable of even jostling the descending shuttle. Mr. Night stifles a squeak. The pilot grins, all mirth and razor sharp teeth.  
  
“Be at peace, Master Mouse.”  
  
“ _Rude_.”  
  
“I only offer comfort where it is needed.”  
  
“It’s working just fine for me,” Jupiter chimes in between peals of thunder, which earns an appreciative ruffling of wings from Axolorin.  
  
“The alcazar approaches,” they announce. “ _Breathe_ , Master Mouse.” Mr. Night has been sucking his teeth in miserable silence, but at the Sargorn’s gravelly request, he exhales slowly through his nose.  
  
“I thought you said this was ‘exhilarating.’” Jupiter casts a sidelong glance at the decidedly unhappy rat splice.  
  
“You will learn,” says the pilot, “that Chicanery Night says many things.”  
  
“You know, I’m starting to like you Mr. Axolorin.” The syllables are tricky and they halt on Jupiter’s tongue in spite of all the care she takes in voicing them.  
  
“‘Ax’ is good,” they allow.  
  
“ _Thank you_ , Mr. Axolorin,” Mr. Night interrupts.  
  
“Spoilsport.”  
  
“Just get us through the Eye.” Jupiter hides a grin behind her hand, and Axolorin glances at her over their shoulder, just for a second, and winks.  
  
“Through and through,” they rumble, and then it’s quiet, but for the howling storm. The shuttle breaks through the cloying mass of clouds into the endless shadow of Deimos’ dark side, illuminated at first in flashes of incandescent silver. The Eye snaps shut behind them, and Jupiter takes in her breath. The planet is obsidian, cast in a dark violet, and there are no lights below save for those that illuminate Balem’s demesnes. The alcazar rises out of the inscrutable darkness, a mass of sharp spires and silvery lights, like some dark star on the surface. The pounding rain folds around the shuttle, freezing before it hits the ground, and bends around the massive opalescent shield that protects Balem’s alcazar. It’s difficult to see where one sharp edge of the edifice ends, and another begins, as though it were crafted from one piece of jagged ore, brooding over the landscape. The landing bay illuminates itself, one circle of light blooming outside of another.  
  
A smooth voice sounds out over the radio.  
  
“This is Deimos Alcazar. You are welcome to set down.”  
  
“Axolorin accepts your welcome,” intones the pilot. “Settling down.” The shuttle touches down lightly in the middle of the illuminated circle, and Mr. Night lets out his breath.  
  
“Well done,” he huffs, then looks to Jupiter. “Shall we?”  
  
“Sure thing. Thanks, Ax.”  
  
“A privilege, Your Majesty. I hope Deimos treats you well.” Jupiter’s answering smile is a little crooked.  
  
“Me too.” She stands, smoothing out her blouse, and follows Mr. Night onto the landing pad. Axolorin waves a little, as she passes, and Night scowls at them. Lightning forks, again, through the sky, illuminating the protective shield that keeps the elements out. The walkway is narrow, flanked on either side by dark columns, each one arcing gracefully into the next. Everything belonging to Balem Abrasax seems to look as if it has been honed to a cutting edge, and his alcazar is no exception, though even this seems to belong to him only by association. The only softness comes from the silvery lights, which keep them from squinting in the dim. The walkway widens out into a teardrop-shaped chamber, this, too, ringed with columns, leaving room to slip behind one or another and hide. Waiting for them is a petite woman with the ears of a bat and thick, black curls. Great wings wrap around her shoulders, which, at a distance, seem as if they might be a somewhat stiff cloak. Her grin is toothy and full of fangs, and her eyes are two drops of jet with no sclera to speak of.  
  
“Chicanery Night! Welcome to Deimos.”  
  
“Vesper Nyctalus.” A look not unlike delight pulls Mr. Night’s gaunt visage a little tauter. “It has been too long. Permit me to present Her Majesty, Jupiter Jones, Recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax.” As Vesper bows low before her, Jupiter can’t help the sudden discomfort welling in her stomach.  
  
“I prefer Jupe,” she says. It doesn’t help. Vesper straightens.  
  
“As you wish, my lady. Lord Balem has asked we show you directly to your chambers. Is there anything else we might offer you?” Jupiter considers. There’s no use in wasting an opportunity to get a little bit ahead while Balem remains an invisible, meddling force, but her mind’s a dazzled blank.  
  
“A tour, maybe?” Vesper cants her head at the request.  
  
“That can be arranged.” She pauses a moment, clicking her tongue, before her dark eyes focus on Mr. Night. “You are requested in the reception hall. East wing.”  
  
“I know the way,” Mr. Night replies, turning just for a moment to Jupiter. “Miss Jones, if you will kindly excuse me.” He gives a shallow inclination of his head, and Jupiter isn’t certain whether to wave him off, or nod in answer. She resigns herself to standing on the spot like a stump, and hoping Night has the good sense to go on his merry way. Which he does. He retreats between two columns, and a shimmering door opens like some sleepy creature blinking awake. The way closes behind him, and Jupiter is alone with Vesper. Being surrounded by so many strangers makes Jupiter long for Caine Wise, for the stability that had always come with his presence. But he could not be here, now. She would have to navigate this place without him. Vesper smiles, allowing a beat of silence pass before she speaks.  
  
“With me, please, Your Majesty.” Her strides are long, and purposeful, but never once does Jupiter feel the need to hurry to keep up. Vesper’s handmaidens fall into step behind them, leaving Jupiter to resist the urge to glance over her shoulder. “I am glad your descent was without incident,” Vesper says. “Mr. Axolorin is an outstanding pilot. Ah, but you must be quite tired. Hungry, perhaps? I’m afraid local produce is not particularly abundant, but we have procured some earthly fare to whet your appetite.”  
  
“That sounds… very nice.” Jupiter had almost forgotten her belly, and at the mention of appetites, became acutely aware of just how hungry she was.  
  
“The evening chimes aren’t for quite some while, but Lord Balem has asked that I invite you to dine with him, after you’ve had a chance to settle in,” Vesper goes on. That comes to Jupiter as a surprise. It seems wrong that Balem should give thought to such mortal things, when he is, himself so still.  
  
“Can you tell him something for me?” she asks, at last.  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
“Tell him I’ll accept his invitation if he asks me personally.”  
  
“I –” Vesper frowns a little, prominent ears drooping. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll make sure he knows.”

  
*

 The Harvestmaster is the stuff of Terran nightmares. They loom eyeless, but not unseeing, over Balem Abrasax who looks up at them with an understanding that grows where in others, it would diminish. One day, when there are no more planets to feed to the Harvestmaster’s appetite, Balem is certain that they will devour whatever remains. He can see Orus overrun with Reapers, while the Harvestmaster looks without looking as its near-immortal populace is consumed at last. Perhaps Mr. Night can see it, too, and that is why he stands with his back to the wall, taking the minutes on a sheave as if it would protect him from the Harvestmaster’s multiplicity of clawed arms.  
  
“Zalintyre was not enough,” they murmur, jagged teeth exposed by lips not meant to cover them. This was the mouth of a beast made for consumption. They fold their primary arms behind their slender back, pacing the jet-black floor. Their lower body undulates beneath them, not quite in the manner of serpent or centipede, but with a precision that Balem admires.  
  
“We must be patient,” he says. “The Harvest I offer you will be the grandest in millennia. You know this, do you not?”  
  
“My people tire of waiting!” cries the Harvestmaster in a voice that sounds like thousands. Chicanery Night almost swallows his tongue. Balem does not move even to draw breath. “We have tasted the skim, and we desire it,” the creature growls, wringing their secondary and tertiary hands. Balem’s expression is masklike as the Harvestmaster begins to circle him, gnarled hands almost touching. Hands made to rend bodies, to hold still, to invade and violate.  
  
“Do you desire, also, to settle for inferior product?” he asks. That gives the Harvestmaster pause. “Have your people gird themselves, and know there will be plenty. We cannot Harvest, yet.” A puff of cold air escapes the nostril slits that sit above the Harvestmaster’s perpetually grinning mouth. Still, they uncoil themselves from around Balem, dissatisfied, but not beyond reason. “There is a lesser planet among my holdings. Melastra. If you cannot wait, tide yourself over with that.”  
  
“You are your mother’s son,” the Harvestmaster purrs. “We will wait until the hunger is too much. If we will to take Melastra, I will come to you.” There is no lie in the Harvestmaster’s voice, or in their undulating limbs. Balem learned long ago that these meetings allowed for that certainty in ways that correspondence never could. “Long life to you, my lord.”  
  
“And you.” The air seems warmer when the Harvestmaster scuttles from the chamber, artificial light pouring in while the eternal night of Deimos lurks outside. It is, as it is so frequently, a _ping_ that breaks the silence. A gambit from Jupiter Jones… Such as it is. A demand on his time, which otherwise is parcelled out with surgical precision. “Offer the Harvestmaster some of the skim before they leave,” Balem murmurs to Mr. Night, who shudders but warbles out his obedience. Alone, for the halls of his alcazars empty out when he visits himself upon them, he passes down the curving stair from the meeting room. His gaze does not light on the statues that flank the hallway, hands folded over their frail, beating hearts. He has no time for such things. The door to Jupiter’s chambers blinks open, and he steps in. His mother’s Recurrence is peeling a pomegranate, and watching the storm outside. For a moment, he thinks of slinking up behind her. He thinks of resting his hands on her shoulders. Her throat. He thinks of squeezing. She turns to look, and those thoughts scatter, like reapers to whom a scrap of meat has been thrown.  
  
“Do you have something to ask me?” She’s wearing a blouse and jeans that look a little oversized with thanks to the RegenX-E. Balem had known she would not wear the dresses without coercion, and to see it proven is… Satisfying. She peels back the membrane of the pomegranate, revealing its crimson heart. He waits for her to pluck a seed, but she doesn’t.  
  
“Dine with me,” he says.  
  
“Doesn’t sound like a question,” she replies.  
  
“An invitation, then.” Jupiter raises her eyebrows, and considers.  
  
“I’ll take it.” She sets the pomegranate down in a faceted bowl, and it’s forgotten. Balem says nothing in answer, gesturing that she should follow. He does not need to look to know that she follows, and passes through the door when it blinks open again. “So, what’s your play?” she asks, as she falls into step alongside him. “What do you get out of this?” Balem glances over at her, but says nothing. “This deal wasn’t even really equitable. You get a year, but I’ve got at least another twenty.”  
  
“Why should that matter?” he asks without looking. His gaze is fixed ahead. He laces his fingers over his stomach as they walk, each languid step accompanied by the soft jangling of the golden bracelets encircling his slender wrists, the shifting of glittering fabrics. Each step he might have gladly taken back, but each remains a necessity in such narrow halls.  
  
“Why _shouldn’t_ that matter?” They pass through the door, and through another, and out into the storm. The turbulence roils overhead, dark sky and pounding rain that strives, and cannot reach them. Balem turns his face upwards, and almost closes his eyes. Lightning licks the clouds, and washes the colour from his face. For an impossible moment, he forgets Jupiter is there with him, but when the thunder is muted by the sound-dampening shield and she takes in her breath beside him at the sight, he hears. The garden is striking, and perhaps it’s this that caught her eye more than the swirling, enraged clouds. The black grasses sway in the cool, artificial wind, and the flowers open up their hearts to show their bioluminescence. Clear water flows from the fountain preceding the trellised archway.  
  
“Kalique seeded this garden,” he tells her. “I thought nothing would survive here, and yet…” Balem treads lightly over the grass, robes almost indistinguishable. He traces along the edge of the fountain with delicate fingertips as he passes it by, and a glass-winged insect takes flight to avoid them. Its thorax turns gold, just for a moment, and then blinks out.  
  
“It’s beautiful,” she concedes. They walk, together, under the archway, hemmed in by twisting, bare bushes, black and wound about each other. The table is set, and waiting, and another lick of lightning rips the sky above in two. There is only one place setting, and he motions for Jupiter to sit. “What are you going to do, stand and watch? That inspires confidence.”  
  
“You know it does not serve me to poison you,” he says, but he can see the doubt on her eyes. She looks at him like some deadly thing, familiar, and yet so distanced from what he remembers that it almost pains him. Still, she is compliant, and she takes her place at the table. He can feel her searching him, keen-eyed and hungry, still, to understand. “Even as you are, if I wished you dead, I need only wait.” A chime rings out over the alcazar, a thousand tiny bells crying out. Another day, ended. This chiming also signals a multitude of servitants to join them in the garden. One bears white wine, and fills Jupiter’s glass. Another sets down a plate, which she looks at, puzzled until the servitant explains that these are scallops from Aquarii’s undersea seared in butter and herbs from this very garden. Last to approach the table is a human taster, whose name Balem has never known, but would have otherwise forgotten. He has seen thousands of their like fall twitching to the ground, there to die. Neither the wine nor the scallops are poisoned, he knows, but it is curious to see the look of relief on the taster’s face when the clam melts in his mouth and does not bring an end with it. The servitants and taster leave them, and there is quiet in the garden once more. Balem pours his own wine, and watches while she refuses to touch anything.  
  
“What do you want from me?” she asks, at last, frustrated and scowling. Her every expression is as painfully familiar as it is foreign, and he cannot look at her for long. He drinks, instead.  
  
“I have what I want from you,” he answers. “Time is the most precious thing remaining to us in this universe. You have yet to see it. That day will come.” She shudders, and the hand that hovers over her fork withdraws.  
  
“Is that what this is?” she asks. “I will _never_ see things your way. If you think this will somehow persuade me into abdication, you’re wrong. You will _never_ touch the Earth.” The anger is immediate and almost blinding.  
  
“It would be wise,” he hisses, “to mind what accusations you make.”  
  
“Or what? I’m not a prisoner, this time.” The garden is disturbed with one sweep of Balem’s arm. The place setting is upset, dishes clattering, wine spilling, crystal smashing. Jupiter leaps from her chair, the bravado in her eyes tainted with a familiar fear. He stalks toward her, but she holds her ground in spite of him. She has never shrunk before him. “Watch it,” she warns. “You might have gotten away clean with what happened before, but if you put your hands on me again, I’ll contact the Aegis and they’ll have your ass.” It takes everything Balem has not to throttle her. Time, he remembers. There is time. It takes one breath and then another to steady him.  
  
“You are free to roam the alcazar as it suits you,” he manages, as if his rage had been only a figment of their imagination. “I have more important matters to attend. I will not be disturbed.” And with that, he turns his back on her, on the garden, and retreats into the onyx halls of the alcazar, disdaining every wasted step.  
  
Jupiter watches him go, a billowing tangle of black silk and gold, and lets out a shaky breath. She had held it together just long enough. Just long enough that he didn’t see her tremble, even for a second. It had been so long ago she almost thought she had forgotten his hand around her throat, his feverish breaths ghosting over her cheek. She hadn’t. Her pounding heart is proof. And so she flees, as much as she can flee when she must ask directions, into her quarters, opulent and terrible. The softness of the silver lights is not enough to keep the darkness from threatening, compressing the air until it quivers. A familiar, bright voice makes her flinch.  
  
– _Hello again, Jupe!_

"Tels!"

_–I have been transferred to your new chamber. Is there anything I might do to assist you?_ The request comes without a moment’s thought.  
  
“Put me in touch with Caine Wise.”  
  
– _I am sorry.  
  
_ “What do you mean?”  
  
– _I am unable to make any outgoing transmissions.  
  
_ “I-is there something wrong? Interference from the storm?"  
  
– _No._ _I am unable to make any outgoing transmissions.  
  
_ “What about incoming? Can anyone reach me?”  
  
– _No.  
  
_ Jupiter’s blood turns to ice. The panic clouds her thinking, but only for a moment or two. She had known better than to go with Balem Abrasax without taking precautions. She pulls off one of her boots, prying up the insole. The communicator is a silver disc, no thicker than a quarter. It might only be good for one message, but she sends it without hesitation.  
  
_Caine. You were right. He’s cut my communications. Deimos.  
  
_ No one answers.


	4. Panic in Deimos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jupiter deals with the communications blackout on Deimos. An unexpected visitor makes an appearance. A decision is made.

Minutes tick by without a response. They turn into hours. Jupiter paces her quarters with her heart in her throat as the time slips by and Tels is silent, still unable to transmit or receive communications. Nothing stirs. _I need a plan_. Jupiter has kept a death grip on her smuggled communicator, as if she might squeeze it into usefulness, now that she has exhausted all combinations of keystrokes and voice commands. On the bright side, Balem hasn’t ordered toxic gas filtered into her quarters, or had her dragged out of the alcazar’s protective shielding to die in Deimos’ inhospitable climate. No one has disturbed her. If the radio silence has some other origin, there is no sign. No scuttling in the hallway. Not even rumbling thunder from outside. Only crushing solitude. Jupiter is keenly aware of the sound of her own heartbeat. The tightness in her chest is almost painful. _I need a plan_. And just as she summons her courage and strides toward the door, her communicator produces a low, mechanical trill, and announces: _Kalique Abrasax, Second Primary of the House of Abrasax is attempting to contact you._  
  
“Aw, hell.”  
  
Trusting Kalique is as much of a mistake as ignoring her. It had only been a matter of time before the rest of the House of Abrasax started stirring. It’s impossible, it turns out, to deal with one without dealing with all three in some capacity or another. She shudders to think of what will happen when Titus unavoidably shows himself. Jupiter swipes her thumb over the face of the communicator and the mellifluous voice of Kalique Abrasax fills the room.  
  
“Oh, Jupiter,” she sighs, “you should have come to me.”  
  
“That’s what Balem said.” Kalique smiles as she materializes out of an azure whirl of coalescing pixels, all pearly teeth and red-lipped graciousness. Her gown is a darker blue than when last they met, nearly black, that fades into a silver that glitters even when she stands perfectly still.  
  
“I’m certain he did,” she says airily. “Ah, but we haven’t much time. My agents will be there shortly to collect you. That is, unless you would prefer to stay. I personally find Deimos rather dour, don’t you?”  
  
“I couldn’t get communications in or out of here. How did you get through?”  
  
“You rely too much on the Aegis, my dear,” Kalique’s smile softens into something that looks like pity, but likely isn’t. “I’m afraid they simply lack the resources. When I heard you were with Balem, I naturally became concerned. I meant only to check on you, when I noticed you were in something of a tight spot, and thought it only wise to step in.” Kalique folds her hands in her lap. “We really must hurry. My brother will notice that I have intervened, and I believe you’ve seen enough of his temper to last you a little while, yet.” Her lips peel back, again, from her teeth, in another of those unreadable smiles, and her gaze shifts somewhat, as the door blinks open. “Ah. Lovely. I believe you’ve met Vesper? I’ll see you soon, Jupiter.”  
  
“Wait. Isn’t this going to cause problems? Balem can file –” Kalique’s eyes turned steely.  
  
“I will smooth things over with Balem. Off you go.” With that, and one last smile, Kalique dissolves from the room. Vesper Nyctalus bows curtly as she steps inside.  
  
“Forgive my intrusion. I am certain Lady Kalique has impressed our need for haste upon you?” Her voice is clipped, dark eyes wide and sightless, but there is purpose in her expression. She removes a bronze-but-not-bronze bracelet from her wrist, and offers it, albeit just a little left of where Jupiter is standing. “Put this on.” The bracelet is warm, still, with the vestiges of Vesper’s body heat, and emits a soft hum when Jupiter slips it over her hand. A matching ring on the splice’s middle finger ignites with a red umber glow and an answering tone. “You’ve not ghosted before, have you, my lady?” Jupiter shakes her head before it occurs to her that Vesper can’t see it.  
  
“Ghosted?” Instead of answering, Vesper takes a step back, then another, vanishing through the wall. Even with the sense of peril hanging over her head, Jupiter can’t help the awe that wells up, tingling, in the pit of her stomach.  
  
“ _Whoa_.” Vesper returns the same way she left, holding out a hand.  
  
“Shall we?”  
  
“Wait, where are we going to –” The bat splice snatches Jupiter’s wrist, and they plummet through the floor. The breath goes out of Jupiter’s lungs and she clenches her teeth against a scream as several floors rush by in a blur of black and silver. Sometimes she sees violet, and once she sees a startled handmaiden, but she and Vesper are gone before she can shriek. Vesper spreads her velvety wings and they slow then settle so lightly that Jupiter’s knees buckle anyway. “Holy _shit_.”  
  
“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”  
  
“I –” _I’m going to be sick_. Jupiter furrows her brows, summoning her strength. It takes a few seconds before she thinks to pull herself onto her feet, dusting off her oversized jeans. “Yeah. I’m all right. Where _are_ we?” The tunnel is so dim that she can barely see, dull lights lining the floor on either side.  
  
“Maintenance tunnels. Lord Balem prefers the halls of the alcazar are kept spare while he is here, but we must move through it somehow.”  
  
“Where is everyone?” Vesper’s smile is thin, but there’s a tightness around her eyes.  
  
“Distracted,” she says, and nothing more. She tugs on Jupiter’s wrist, encouraging her to follow, her brisk steps barely audible even in the tunnel. “We have to hurry. Our shuttle won’t wait for long.”  
  
“Doesn’t Balem control the Eye? How are we going to fly out of here?” Another thin smile.  
  
“Axolorin’s one of the best shuttle pilots in the ‘verse. They could make this ascent in their sleep.”  
  
“Ax is one of Kalique’s, too?” Vesper nods.  
  
“We’ve been monitoring Lord Balem since we found out he survived the incident at the Jupiter stockworks. Bat splices are valuable on Deimos, as it’s always dark on this side of the planet, and we don’t need to see. The storms sometimes cause outages, during which time, we’re indispensable. And since Mr. Night is … We’re old friends. He arranged my placement here.”  
  
“Mr. _Night_ isn’t –”  
  
“A double agent? Oh, no. If Lord Balem doesn’t kill him, Chicanery will be very cross with me.” Jupiter’s stomach knots. As much as she wouldn’t number Mr. Night among her friends, she struck by a sort of… Sympathy? Is it sympathy? It quiets her awhile, and a thought returns that has haunted her since she first emerged from the pool of RegenX-E.  
  
“There has to be a better way.”  
  
“Your Majesty?”  
  
“No one should have to die.” Jupiter stops, fear and urgency muted by the sudden reminder of the weight of her decisions. There were always lives in the balance. Staying here, or fleeing, would have consequences, and not just for her. “No one has to get hurt,” she says. “This doesn’t have to get out of hand.”  
  
“We are already taking risks to extract you. There’s no telling what Lord Balem might intend for you.” The hallway seems endless. Jupiter’s frown deepens.  
  
“I also don’t know what he’ll do if I leave like this. What if this is a mistake? What if we haven’t thought this through? If I stay here, I’ve got the high ground, and there’s no need for anyone to overreact.”  
  
“And he might kill you.” Vesper’s expression is stony, but her tone remains low and even. Her grip tightens on Jupiter’s wrist, thin, wiry fingers all that betray her growing frustration. “If you don’t leave with us, now, there’s a chance we might not be able to manage another extraction. I won’t be able to stay, even having come this far. There’s too much risk that I’ll be discovered.” Jupiter chews her lip. “Whatever you decide, Majesty, it has to be quick. I can return you to your chambers, if that’s your wish, but I must caution you. Lady Kalique wouldn’t give the order to lift you lightly. I was providing valuable intel.”  
  
“But she wouldn’t tell me I’m in danger?” Vesper lets out a scoff, ruffling her wings in a familiar gesture of frustration.  
  
“I would think the danger is apparent,” she manages, tight-jawed and urgent. “You do what you think is best, Your Majesty. I don’t have orders to drag you.”

 

Jupiter takes a breath, teetering on the edge, and decides.

 

* * *

 

Deimos is not the most stable planet, in terms of its communications network, but when it all blinks out in an instant, Balem not only hears about it, but knows who best to suspect. He does not need to speak her name aloud before Kalique appears, beautiful, and with demands. She is always beautiful. It is not quite their mother’s loveliness, but he can see her hand in it. Her work, like any master of their craft, bears a signature, and it’s this that makes him gaze for a little longer than he ought; their mother’s masterstroke in the corner of Kalique’s scarlet mouth. Seraphi’s phantom is everywhere, ashes scattered through centuries and across galaxies. She hangs in the air between them like a perfume that they are helpless but to inhale.  
  
“If you wished for my attention,” Balem begins, unblinking, “an FTL would have sufficed.” Kalique’s facsimile moves silently across the boardroom floor, aglow like some holy thing, but he knows better.  
  
“I wanted your _undivided_ attention,” she says, and she smiles as she always smiles; just often enough that most find it impossible to tell when her smiles are genuine. This one is not. Balem motions her closer from where he lounges, even so. She crosses the jet-black floor, lazily as a comet traversing the sky, gown trailing in her wake. For all the scrambling to restore communications, the two of them move slowly. There is enough of eternity left between them. Let lesser creatures make such scuttling haste.  
  
“I’m listening,” he drawls. Kalique joins him on the spacious settee, and a silence passes. She is not like Titus who speaks to fill the empty air. Eternity has come to her naturally. She was made to live forever, and so she takes her time, effortless and forever. Lightning flickers over her face, the shadows deepening in its wake.  
  
“I’d like you to come visit me on Icaraxe,” she says, once the silence has played itself out, and then only after a roar of distant thunder has broken it first. “I think you’ll find there’s at least one very good reason to humour me. After all, we’ve not been there together since before mother died, and you keep your alcazars so austere I can scarcely stand it. I don’t know how you manage.” The fingers of her facsimile flicker and disperse a little as she forgets herself, just for a moment, and runs a hand through his hair. It feels like a whisper. She clicks her tongue, knowing just as well that she would have never dared to lay a finger on him, were they both flesh. Those days were done. “When was the last time you slept?” Balem says nothing. “Humour me.” This might mean either her request, or her question. He chooses the former. There is already too much of the past, here, ripples of time that ought to have been forgotten lingering on. Jupiter is not with them, but her wake – their mother’s wake – always is. It is easier to fall back on formality than to make more room for the memory of those careless days when he could afford not to be so sharp.  
  
“I should file a grievance for this obstruction of communications.”  
  
“If you like,” Kalique shrugs, but knows. “Although, I can’t imagine how long this inconvenience might continue while that grievance is being processed.” A wordless look is all that Balem answers with, but it is enough. The passing millennia have made speech not obsolete, but at times, less necessary. Their understanding is frustratingly imperfect, but there are moments when Kalique can even speak on his behalf. That she should see him so easily compliant tautens the fullness of his lips. “Thank you for your understanding,” she says.  
  
“Kalique…” Her hand hovers halfway through the gesture that might have scattered her image and left them each alone.  
  
“Balem?”  
  
“I have received a notice,” he tells her mildly. “A ghosting device has been discharged on the premises. Perhaps this is another irregularity caused by your disruption?”  
  
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know. Although, I’m told that’s possible,” she concedes.  
  
“I have also received reports of a minor breach in the shielding around the South Wing of the alcazar.” At that, Kalique is momentarily silent. He sees it when she bites the inside of her cheek, and derives no small amount of satisfaction from the sight.  
  
“I simply must see to it that your rooms are made ready for when you arrive,” she says. “I’d like you to be comfortable. I hope you’ll excuse me.”  
  
The nod that dismisses her is barely perceptible, but she is digital ash, and Balem is alone with his ghosts. Time has fractured, has been fractured, now and then colliding. The moment that passes, and the moment after that are difficult to distinguish, to disentangle from the others. It might have been yesterday, or a thousand years ago that he crushed the breath out of the woman who had given him life. It might have been a moment ago that Kalique was here, or a century. There is more to be done, yet, than could be done in a single lifetime. A world could end, before it was finished, and undone. Countless lives have blinked out of existence across the galaxy as he sits here, looking into nothing. The next breath he pulls into his lungs feel like his first, and he stirs, at last, like some ancient snake uncoiling itself. He does not travel far, only to the window, to rest his hands on the sill. His mouth is full of venom, and the vastness of eternity reflects itself in his eyes. The storm outside does not.  
  
“Lord Balem?” He does not remember giving Mr. Night leave to disturb him hours after the evening chimes, nor did he hear the doors open and shut. But there he stands, at least for a time. There had been another before him, some centuries ago, and there would be another after. “My lord?” Night is cautious, his soft voice even softer. “Communications have been re-established, and there is word from Orus.” Night stands wringing his hands for a moment or two, and only continues when Balem makes eye contact. “Excellent news,” he says, “Quetzalk has made contact with my agent in the Hall of Titles. There is footage from Revenue Review that may be of use to us.” The world comes into focus, and Balem can almost glimpse at the future it promises.  
  
“Is it secure?”  
  
“We are making certain.”  
  
“Have Quetzalk eliminate our agent in the Hall of Titles. Once it’s done, have him disposed of.” Mr. Night stops wringing his hands.  
  
“As you wish,” he says, and the wringing resumes. “I’ll have the footage from Revenue Review delivered as soon as it becomes securely available.” There is a beat of silence, perhaps while Mr. Night mulls his words, which stretches long enough that Balem almost notices. “There is another matter, my lord. As you may know, the breach in the South Wing was close enough to Miss Jones’ chambers to merit some concern. I arrived at her chambers to make certain that she was unaware of any disturbance, and…”  
  
“And?” Mr. Night sucks his teeth, pink tongue flicking out to dampen chapped lips. Balem does not press. By now, he knows there is little harm in letting the rat keep his secrets. He might extract them at any moment, after all. For now, he remains satisfied to let Mr. Night scurry on. What little colour remains in the rat splice’s chalky face returns to it, as a moment passes undisrupted.  
  
“She has requested to meet with you. Although, my lord, I believe you have made it clear that you were not to be disturbed?”  
  
“Yet, you are here.”  
  
“Indeed.” Mr. Night clears his throat. “She is effectively a member of the First Estate, and as such, I –”  
  
“I am well aware.” The gesture that summons the settee to him is barely a twitch of the fingers, and he resumes his seat. “Bring her here.”  
  
“At once, my lord.”

 

* * *

 

   
Jupiter is having second thoughts. She is having second and third and fourth thoughts. Her heart has barely stopped pounding since Vesper arrived, and since Vesper pointed out the way back to her quarters. Or, rather, the way to a servitant, who hadn’t the programming to think it odd that Vesper was in the maintenance tunnels in the company of Jupiter Jones. And just like that, the way out was shut. She had been on her way back to her room, such as it was, when she crossed paths, again, with Mr. Night. It was only by good luck that she had thought to stow her communicator back in her boot. She had kept a clawed grip on it even after Kalique had left her.  
  
“I, uh, needed to stretch my legs,” she’d explained, which was a horrible lie, but that Night accepted anyway, leaving her to fret once she had demanded an audience with Balem – a request that made him hold his breath for a solid two seconds before he agreed to oblige. A change of clothes had helped settle her – utilitarian black, not unlike the uniform the Aegis might have provided – but she couldn’t help but turn the decision over in her mind. Would it have been wiser to abandon their agreement and run?  
  
When Mr. Night returns, his eyes look just as red-rimmed as when he had elected to buy her ruse, and convey her wishes (apparently) to Balem. It doesn’t seem odd that he’s still awake, and for all of Deimos’ darkness, Jupiter isn’t tired. She’s forgotten the chimes that declare an arbitrary nighttime.  
  
“My lord will see you, now,” he announces, still managing not to look particularly harried, but unable to keep exhaustion from creeping into his voice. Jupiter nods.  
  
“Cool.” Night does something of a double-take at that, but unflappable as ever, he beckons for her to follow. He wrings his hands even as they walk. “You doing okay?” It seems an almost unkind question. She has a few ideas about why Mr. Night might be feeling a bit of pressure.  
  
“Me?”  
  
“No, your shadow.”  
  
“My –?”  
  
“ _Yes,_ you.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
“You look a little… stressed.” Mr. Night almost stops walking to gawk at her. His thin lips twitch more than once, and his hand-wringing ceases. His deliberation takes more than a moment, before he clears his throat as if to do so might clear the confusion, too.  
  
“I’m quite sure I’ve no idea what you mean, Miss Jones. There’s certainly nothing to worry about. I am perfectly well, thank you.” The purpose returns to his stride, and they proceed in silence. The alcazar is chillingly quiet. When Mr. Night speaks again, it is only to announce their arrival. Massive jet-black doors lead into Balem’s… quarters? Meeting room? Jupiter wasn’t certain, but she hardly expected to find him anywhere but a private space. The doors open up like a toothless maw, and Mr. Night stops at the threshold. He gives a polite inclination of his head, and watches, stifling a yawn as she passes into the characteristically grim hall. The doors snap shut behind her, but she doesn’t flinch. The shapes are different, but the layout of the room is familiar enough to turn her stomach. This better not have been a mistake.  
  
“I’m beginning to notice a trend,” she calls across the room, where Balem almost inevitably sits. The storm outside is not the burning orange of his ruined refinery, but vast latticed windows look out on it, and there is no dais, but the intimations of their first, dreadful encounter are there. “Not a fan of change?” Balem makes no answer but a sharp huff of breath.  
  
“I hope you haven’t come here merely to criticise the architecture.”  
  
“I think it’s safe to say the architecture is the least of my problems.” He blinks, snakelike. The silence might not be so uncomfortable, but for his stare, always looking for something that wasn’t, and would never be there. Even that might not have been so terrifying were it not for the possibility that even one thing, a glance, a gesture, might somehow find its origin in the House of Abrasax’s slain matriarch. She can see him looking at her, and remembering precisely how he killed a woman with the same face. “So, uh…” she begins, to disturb the silence, “this is already awkward. But, look, I just want to clear up a few things. I don’t want to fight with you. I get the feeling that that might be unavoidable.” Still, he says nothing, and to add insult to injury, his gaze turns to the grand windows, to the billowing clouds. “I just want to understand.” That draws his eye.  
  
“Do you think you can?”  
  
“I want to try.” Balem’s smile is uncommonly natural, and utterly bemused. It vanishes with the next flicker of lightning from outside, so quickly that it might just as well have been a figment of the imagination.  
  
“Kalique has contacted me,” he says, letting that thread go unexplored. If his stare was fixed on her before, it is locked firmly upon her now, as if he could look beneath her skin and watch her blood turn to ice. Did he know that they had spoken? That she had nearly fled? He gives no sign, not even the bat of an eye. “She’s asked to meet on one of her holdings,” he says. “I believe you will find the architecture more to your liking there.” Jupiter’s brows arch. Was that a joke? The thought that his timing was in desperate need of help is almost enough to bring the ghost of a smile to her lips.  
  
“And you’ve agreed?”  
  
“She would have it no other way. Someone will collect you when it comes time to depart,” he informs her. “And now, I believe, we are done here.”  
  
“Fair –”  
  
“ _We’re done._ ” A new frost settles on the harsh edges of Balem’s voice, just when Jupiter thought her blood had begun to thaw. She turns sharply, rubbing at the hairs standing up on the back of her neck as she makes her way across the hall, and through the doors that gape open at her approach. _Well, that could have gone worse_. By now Jupiter is almost accustomed to beating a retreat back to her assigned quarters, and it’s not until she’s pulled off her boots that she realizes how exhausted she is. Exhausted enough that the flashing light from inside her shoe almost goes unnoticed. She fishes her communicator out, the source of the blinking. How long had that been going on?

_  
You have 1 (one) message_.

  
She knows before she opens it that it must be from Caine, whose absence has gnawed at her bones since her first message went unanswered, and perhaps even unsent. _I’m coming to find you_ , it says. _Stay safe._ And though to hear any news from Caine was a relief, and though she was beyond exhaustion, Jupiter found herself again unable to sleep.


	5. As If She Were Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jupiter accompanies Balem to Icaraxe, where Kalique awaits them in a floating alcazar. Caine Wise catches up.

– _Hello, Jupe! It’s time to wake up! We are now entering orbit over Icaraxe, one of the many holdings of Kalique Abrasax. The planet is known for its floating alcazar and the ice-sheet which now encases –  
  
_ Jupiter whines softly, and for a long time, burying herself under the too-light covers. If she had looked haggard when she woke up from a scant few hours of fitful sleep – and no sign of Caine – she now looks like the living dead.  
  
– _Your tea will arrive shortly.  
  
_ “I – I didn’t ask for tea,” Jupiter mumbles, half-coherent. It feels like afternoon, and she dimly remembers a light breakfast, hours ago, and mercifully comprised of recognizable earth fare. Or, perhaps, the next best thing in careful disguises.  
  
– _I observed Your Majesty was unusually fatigued.  
  
_ “Well,” she manages, with a sluggish blink at the ceiling, “you’re not wrong. Thanks, Tels.”  
  
– _It is a pleasure to serve_. It takes a moment to summon the will to roll out of bed, but Jupiter is on her feet before the door chimes.  
  
“Come in!” A servitant enters, carrying a tray. They set it down on the end table, and after a bow, are gone before Jupiter can muster a ‘thank you.’ The tea, served in a faceted black mug, is deep amber in colour with flecks of sapphire blue swirling in it. “You have _got_ to be shitting me,” Jupiter mumbles, touching the sides of the mug tentatively. The warmth is comforting, even if the aroma of Tels’ tea is foreign. It’s a pleasant mix of floral and earthy scents, neither of the which makes Jupiter want to _taste_ the stuff. She spends a moment or two just inhaling, but imagining Tels somehow expectant that she take a sip, she pushes the thought of poison and potential allergies out of mind. She does, however, mutter a prayer under her breath in her very best Russian. Three things occur to her in rapid succession. The tea is way too hot. It tastes incredible. She doesn’t know what to do.  
  
Somewhere between the awful sensation of her burned tongue and the raw wonder of the tea, she catches herself thinking _this is the worst_ , and only meaning it by half. This, she realizes, is not unlike learning of all the wonders of the universe at the expense of having to deal with the House of Abrasax. _This is the worst_. The worst, and, coupled with the lack of sleep, uproariously funny. A chuckle turns into a guffaw, and then into a near-hysterical cackle that is so difficult to rein in that it is almost alarming.  
  
– _Jupe_?  
  
“F-fine, I’m fine!” she manages at last, which does nothing but baffle Tels.  
  
– _I do not understand_.  
  
“I’m just tired,” Jupiter explains at last, judging it safe enough to take another sip of tea without risk of further harm to her tongue, or spraying the stuff across the room in another fit of laughter. It almost isn’t strange any more to ruminate over a cup of tea while endless space stretches on outside the window. Almost. Even from this distance, the first glimpse of Icaraxe is breathtaking. It is a pearl of silver-blue, cast in the light of its distant golden sun. It’s difficult to tear her eyes away long enough to think about getting dressed. Jupiter can’t help her excitement at the prospect of setting foot on another new world, even with the peril that lurks constantly in her periphery. She dresses hurriedly, and yet feels as if she’s moving in slow motion, as though if she doesn’t hurry, Icaraxe and its splendour will somehow dissolve and she will miss it. For an awful, sobering moment, she wonders if it’s this that makes the Entitled clamour for life-giving RegenX-E, ravening for every sight the universe has to offer before it is too late. It passes, as she gazes on the planet below and its trio of glimmering moons like drops of alabaster.  
  
“Hey, Tels? How soon can I get a shuttle?”  
  
– _A shuttle will not be necessary. There is a landing bay. The order to begin our descent has not yet been given._ The wait is torture. Even brooding Deimos has been a wonder, what little of it she had managed to see, but Icaraxe is luminous and it beckons. Even her own reflection in the window seems to shift aside to let her look more closely. A low hum begins to reverberate through the floor, one that Jupiter fancies she can feel in her bones, as the clipper slips into orbit as easily as one might pass from sleep into dreaming. The new world below seems almost to call out, and the urge to see it unfold before her is almost a hunger. Icaraxe is caught in the light of its sun, which throws a bright corona about it. Jupiter drinks it in as the clipper begins its descent, thinking, just for a fleeting instant, of her father. Of her family. It doesn’t feel like long before the ship makes its stately entrance into the planet’s atmosphere, but the homesickness outlasts it, not overwhelmed by the marvels of the planet’s surface as it comes into view. It simply mingles with that sense of wonder, a quiet, constant ache.  
  
Glimpsing at the surface, thousands of miles below, Jupiter gasps aloud. At first, it looks like an endless ocean, but here, the land and sea are one. Icaraxe glitters in sapphire and ice blue, frozen solid. It might have been lifeless, were it not for the last split-second in which the planet lived and breathed before it froze in a dreadful flash, still partly visible beneath the ice. The sun, shining futilely down, only causes the frigid wastes to glisten. Jupiter scarcely has time to finish reeling at the half-uttered cry, still somehow palpable, resonating from below. There are more wonders, yet, to gaze on. Another miracle, just hanging in the sky.  
  
– _If you look far to your left, Jupe, you can see one part of the alcazar of Kalique Abrasax.  
  
_ At first, it is nothing but a distant twinkling, a spark shimmering high above the fields of ice. The palatial edifices that compose the alcazar are contained in spheres of what looks like glass, drifting in the air like blown bubbles in the summertime. It is nothing like Balem’s jagged estate, crafted to cleave through any resistance, defiant and poised to draw blood. This is a place that rides the current with such ease that all thoughts of science turn to magic. Here, the buildings curve gracefully, shining in the sunlight, timeless and unassailable. Jupiter catches herself hoping for sunsets, dreaming of how those transparent spheres will look against a violet sky. She doesn’t hear the door when it chimes, and flinches at the even voice that stirs her from her silent awe.  
  
“Forgive my intrusion, Your Majesty.” It is not Mr. Night come to fetch her – something she has almost become accustomed to – but a servitant who smiles and bows precisely on cue, and likely never smells of intergalactic booze. Night, no doubt, has been left on Deimos, there to attend the refinery, which the beleaguered rat-splice likely finds a relief. It’s odd not to see him wringing his hands, to wonder at what cogs were turning in that mousy brain of his. Still, it’s easier to muster a smile for the servitant, who she doesn’t associate with the abduction of her loved ones.  
  
“Time to go?” A smile and a nod arrive on cue.  
  
“This way, please.”  
  
By now, Jupiter is convinced that the halls of the clipper are alive and moving. The route they take is not the same as the one to the shuttle bay, as they are, it would seem, to disembark directly. Jupiter is also certain she sees little that is recognizable along the way. The place is maddeningly uniform. It remains more of a labyrinth than a ship. At the end of the network of halls and flights of stairs that make the servitant’s heels click quite audibly, a pair of looming doors rumble aside, giving way to another mind-boggingly large chamber. A compliment of red-swathed guards flank the doors on either side in meticulous rows. When they turn to face her, heavy boots thumping in unison, she flinches. The servitant stops behind her, leaving Jupiter to steel herself before walking down the aisle between the crimson guards, arms cut off at the elbow in favour of plasma cannons. She still expects that they will turn on her in an instant, and reduce her to vapour. Instead, they are deathly silent, and watching. Pageantry is, for the Entitled, it seems, a necessity. This, however, is more a show of force. Jupiter cannot count off-hand the mechanical bodies that fit effortlessly inside the gigantic chamber. She has seen a cathedral crammed into a clipper, and still can only be staggered by the dizzying size of the room, huge enough to easily accommodate these dozens on dozens of guards.  
  
Balem waits at the end of the aisle, as by now is custom, with his back to her. His attention is on the planet below, and the approaching sphere that contains the docking bay. It dwarfs the clipper, which passes smoothly through the protective shielding like a dark mollusk retreating into safety. The hangar itself resembles a spiral shell, swirling up towards the iridescent dome that encases the building. Jupiter can only wonder at how out of place the clipper must look as it settles onto the docking platform with a palpable shudder. She lets out a sound of surprise at that, and it’s then that Balem seems to realize, or perhaps remember, she’s there.  
  
“This planet was a part of my sister’s inheritance,” he tells her. “It belonged to our mother.”  
  
_Oh boy._ Jupiter braces herself, but Balem’s voice stays soft as he reminisces.  
  
“When she was… When Kalique inherited the planet, she commanded that it be frozen. Everything remains where mother left it, wasted. Icaraxe would have produced a fair Harvest.”  
  
“And just for a second, I thought the waste of life might’ve occurred to you,” Jupiter scoffs.  
  
“Most of them led miserable lives. We delivered them from that.”  
  
“And what about the ones who were happy?” Balem gives an ambivalent shrug.  
  
“Everything ends.”  
  
“Except you, right?” Jupiter rolls her eyes, and it’s Balem’s turn to scoff. It he meant to offer a counter-argument, the opportunity passes, as the gangplank extends, and the clipper opens itself to the alcazar. Balem advances without another word, confident that the others will fall into step behind him. Jupiter, less accustomed to making such grand entrances, trails along, back straight, eyes ahead, strides even. It’s all she can do to keep from tiptoeing. Setting foot into every one of these alcazars feels like a trespass. Perhaps it’s the filtered air that makes her chest constrict, or the breathless awe that these ivory halls inspire. Neither of which seem to have any effect on Balem, who moves with the languid confidence of a creature that has no natural predator. Even smothered in black silk, he looks as if he were deliberately crafted to stand out in contrast to his surrounds. And then, there is Kalique.  
  
The spiralling ceiling boasts a crystal skylight that shatters the sunlight into a lattice of rainbows that adorn the white marble floor, and in the middle of this spectacle of light and stone, stands their host. She has few guards; only those stationed by the doors, royal blue and motionless. Compared to Balem’s compliment, it looks like nothing. Behind her, what is best described as a string quartet, pluck at instruments Jupiter has never seen before. One of the musicians carries what resembles a harp, the strings of which are made manifest only when her nimble fingers cause them to vibrate. Kalique lifts her crystal-encrusted arms, iridescent sparkles flinging refracted light, and turns up her palms.  
  
“Welcome,” she says, as she advances, the train of her gown following at her heels. Behind her, Jupiter can see Vesper Nyctalus, standing in the shadow of Axolorin who winks a bright, yellow eye. If the sight means anything to Balem, he does nothing to give it away. His attention is drawn, first, to the musicians, and for just a beat too long, before he looks to his sister. Her name on his lips is scarcely breath.  
  
“Kalique.” He does not bow, but gives the slightest of nods. “Your next invitation, I hope, will come with more notice.” Kalique only smiles, closing the last bit of distance, arms still outstretched. Jupiter almost expects they might embrace, or that Kalique might take Balem’s hands in hers, but the tips of her fingers fall short as she lowers her arms.  
  
“Perhaps if you responded to more of them, it might.”

“I am exceedingly busy.”  
  
“Too busy even for family?”  
  
“Particularly for family.” Kalique’s laughter twinkles like the countless crystals sewn into her gown. And then her attention turns on Jupiter, who isn’t quite certain why her knees have turned to jelly.  
  
“Jupiter! I am so glad that you’ve elected to join us. My brother can be such grim company.”  
  
“Believe me,” Jupiter sighs, “I know.” She offers a slight smile, but Kalique does not acknowledge it.  
  
“Well, then. I don’t suppose I could interest you in some refreshments, perhaps, while I speak with him privately? I’m afraid there is a touch of business to discuss.” Balem seems about to speak when Kalique continues. “I have some questions about a matter that arose on Orus recently. I hope you don’t mind?” Her grin is unsettling, but more unnerving are the two pair of immortal eyes Jupiter finds are now locked on her. She glances from Balem to Kalique and back again, and having done so, still can’t begin to read their expressions. There’s no chance in hell that she’ll ever puzzle out what Balem wants, and Kalique, it seems, is on another level altogether. Another moment passes.

“Sure,” she croaks.  
  
“Excellent! I’ll have Malidictes show you around. Unless, perhaps, you would prefer Vesper? I believe you’ve met.” One glance at the look on the bat-splice’s face is enough to tell Jupiter what a horrible idea that would be. Better a stranger, or… Or… And her mild panic speaks for her. Beside her, it feels like Balem is holding his breath.  
  
“I don’t suppose Ax – er – Mr. Axolorin knows the way around?” Over Kalique’s shoulder, the hulking Sargorn cocks their head to the side, and nudges Vesper with their elbow. Balem shoots Jupiter a glance that she knows means trouble, but before Kalique he says nothing.    
  
“And I thought only my brother was so comfortable amongst the Sargorn. Very well.” She beckons, which makes the rings on her fingers, these set with opals, flash. Axolorin bows with a flourish of their great wings, one of which, Jupiter now notices, is warped and scarred, as if it had been badly burned. There’s little time for looking, however, and social graces to observe.  
  
“Thank you, Kalique.” Then a half-turn. In avoiding his eyes, Jupiter finds herself looking, instead, at his mouth, which causes an uncomfortable stirring that makes her wish she’d just met his gaze instead. “Balem.” She takes a half-step toward scaly salvation. _Get me the hell out of here_.  
  
“After me, please, Majesty.” The Sargorn beckons, and once Jupiter falls into step, continues in low tones. “The doors here are portals from sphere to sphere,” they explain, as they guide her to what looks like an ovular window, leading out into thin air. “It will flash a little.” Jupiter steps into the portal, and the light is blinding. It lasts just long enough to be disconcerting, and a new room floods into view. The floor of the antechamber is glass, and looking down, she can see the dizzying height the sphere hangs over, another, larger sphere below. There is a garden housed within, and the trees push at the domed ceiling. This one is ringed with silver bushes, the leaves of which are an unbelievable midnight blue. Just to the left of the portal, stands a bench, solid and white. Jupiter flees to it without waiting for Axolorin.  
  
“This is insane,” she mumbles under her breath. “This place is insane.” Her Sargorn guide says nothing, at first, sidling up beside her. They pluck a velvet cushion from the bench, which looks particularly tiny in their large claws, and push it into Jupiter’s lap.  
  
“Hold this awhile.” Jupiter squeezes the cushion, considering for a moment, whether or not it would help to scream into it. She elects not to, allowing a silence to pass, tracing along the silver embroidery. It’s Axolorin who speaks, their resonant voice almost a purr. “Are you all right, Majesty?”  
  
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Jupiter can no longer distinguish between exhaustion, and the overwhelming stress that comes with the mad fact that she is standing in what is essentially a bubble, floating along over the frozen wreck of what was once a thriving planet. “I’m here, and everything is made of glass, and you’re, you’re big and lizard-y.”  
  
“Yes…”  
  
“And I know that Vesper’s not exactly thrilled with me.”  
  
“She is livid,” they confirm.  
  
“Look. No one’s telling me anything. All I know is that a lot is happening. Something’s changed, or someone’s planning, and I’ve got –”  
  
“Very little,” Axolorin supplies sagely. “Go peacefully, Majesty. Composure is the prized possession of the Entitled.” Jupiter raises her eyebrows. “Lord Balem, perhaps, excepted.” The Sargorn flashes their teeth, bright mischief in their aurous eyes.  
  
“You’re good at this,” Jupiter notes. She isn’t certain what constitutes a querying look for a Sargorn, but the cant of Axolorin’s head is almost avian, and certainly curious. “I was… Kind of freaking out. I’m still freaking out. But you’re… Really chill.”  
  
“Cold?” A further cant of the head.  
  
“Calm.”  
  
“It is not the tranquil pilot who sinks the ship,” they say with a shrug of mountainous shoulders. “The royal ones have thousands of years to themselves. If you slow a little, from time to time, they do not always take note. Breathe, Majesty. There are refreshments on the way, and they are very good.”  
  
“What was that Kalique said about Orus?” Jupiter asks suddenly, squeezing the cushion, still not quite able to put it back. Axolorin only chuckles.  
  
“Secrets, Majesty. Secrets. Chicanery Night might know.”  
  
“Big surprise.”  
  
“It is known that Night always knows,” Axolorin concedes, “but it is less known how he knows.” Across the way, a portal ignites, and admits a handmaiden in a gown of flowing white, a sapphire-encrusted platter in her hands. She sets it down on the hovering table without a word, and vanishes into the portal again.  
  
“Want some?” Jupiter offers, which throws even cool Axolorin for a moment.  
  
“Full of turns…” they murmur. “Full of turns. I will have one of these.” They spear what resembles a softly incandescent marshmallow on their claws. “Cerisean sugar is very nice, and it shines. Thank you, Majesty.”  
  
“Most I can do, apparently.”  
  
“That, I do not believe. You chose well on Deimos.” Here, they pause, glancing around. “Do not tell Vesper.” Their tongue flicks out, and the glowing sugar cube disappears.  
  
“Cross my heart,” Jupiter swears. Axolorin cocks their head. “Oh. I promise.” Sargorns do not smile, Jupiter notices, but show their teeth. The coldness somehow absent from Axolorin’s eye is all that distinguishes the expression from a snarl. She catches herself thinking of Balem, whose smiles are much the same, and Kalique, who conjures the necessary warmth with alarming ease. Movement out of the corner of her eye extricates Jupiter from contemplating that tangle for too long. She looks, and sees a reflection in the curving glass wall. A woman in a long dress with a train of white feathers, glides against the frozen landscape below. Jupiter turns, in hopes of finding the origin of the reflection, but there’s not a soul around, save for Axolorin. When she glances back to the reflection, it gazes back with her face. _What the hell is that?  
  
_ “Majesty?” Axolorin asks, and the reflection is gone in a blink. Jupiter is on her feet, uncertain when precisely she’d leapt to them. Or when she’d dropped the cushion she’d been clinging to.  
  
“I’m fine… I just… I got a chill.”  
  
“Not the calm kind.”  
  
“Nope,” Jupiter stoops to pick up the cushion from where it had fallen. “Nope, not the calm kind.” Before any more can be said, a small light flashes on a band wrapped around Axolorin’s wrist.  
  
“A summons for me… Will you be all right, should I pay heed to it?” Jupiter takes a steadying breath, replacing the cushion on the bench.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, go ahead.” Axolorin studies her for a long moment, and just as she begins to consider telling them what she saw, they speak.  
  
“If there’s a need, squeeze twice on this.” They tug a disc-shaped pin from their lapel, holding it out carefully.  
  
“Thanks, Ax.” They show their fangs again.  
  
“Have some of those sweets.” Jupiter musters a smile of her own, and a nod. With a flourish of their grand, damaged wings, Axolorin strides toward the portal-door and through, gone in a flicker of gold.  
  
“Pull yourself together, Jupe,” she murmurs, raking her fingers through her hair. She takes a slow breath in through her nose, and lets it out just as slowly. “Ugh… This is fine. This is perfect.” She eyes the platter of sweets and unnameable fruit. Are those even fruits at all? Clustered around each cube of Cerisean sugar are what look like miniature blue strawberries, the seeds of which look more like rhinestones than anything else. She’s almost not certain if they’re meant to be eaten at all. Sticking to what she can identify, or what she at least has a name for, Jupiter picks the cube of incandescent sugar off the tray. It has about the consistency of a marshmallow, perhaps a little firmer, but when she puts it in her mouth, it is so sweet it tingles on the tongue. It’s not enough for even the food to glitter, here. It must also taste as one would imagine sparkles to taste. _Unbelievable_.  
  
Her brief solitude is interrupted when the portal ignites. At first, Jupiter assumes it’s Axolorin, too-swiftly returned, but as the golden light fades, she can see that this new visitor is too slight, and too familiar. Too inconceivable.  
  
“Caine!”  
  
She wants to be whisked away. She wants to rush into his arms, and take off for the stars, for other, beautiful planets that have not yet been wasted for the vanity of some near-immortal creature. She longs for the wonders of space without the demands of its inhabitants, for Caine, for someplace safe, and she knows that she cannot have it. Jupiter stops short, hands hanging in the air between them, and he does not move to fill the space. It must be strange, she realizes, and must have been since her Recode. Caine’s expression is fixed and stony, and he looks between her and the transparent walls. But this silence has to break.  
  
“How did you get here?” she asks. “Does Kalique know?”  
  
“Yeah,” he nods grimly. “Intercepted on the way to Deimos.” There’s another beat of uncomfortable silence. “Is it true what she said? When they came to lift you, you decided to stay?” Jupiter nods, and his jaw tightens.  
  
“Hey, it’s not like I stuck around because I was enjoying myself.” She catches him glancing away, and presses. “Look at me.” When he does, she almost wishes he hadn’t, as looking back, she sees only hurt, and doubt. Confusion. “I’m not any different. I… look different.” Her stomach clenches, but she moves past that thought, to the next. “I’m not about to start Harvesting planets. I don’t want to be a part of this. But I am. And I can’t stop what I can’t understand. I’ve got to learn how the Entitled do things if I ever want anything to change.”  
  
“Looks to me like you’re off to a pretty good start.”  
  
“I’m not… I’m not trying to _be_ like them. Caine, all I want is to find a better way. RegenX-E isn’t the answer. These feuds? None of it works. Not for anyone.”  
  
“And you think,” Caine begins, incredulous, “that the House of Abrasax can help with that?”  
  
“I think I’m stuck with them. I can’t just get rid of them, and I sure as hell can’t ignore them. I’ve got to start somewhere.” Caine starts to frown, and she can almost see him visibly digging in his heels.  
  
“So what’s next?”  
  
“Stick with the deal.” That doesn’t help; Caine’s frown only deepens. “Nothing good will happen if I bail out, now.”  
  
“Nothing good will happen if you _stay_.”  
  
“It’s still better than what will happen if I go back on my word. Why can’t you trust me to handle this?”  
  
“It’s too dangerous. And I can’t…” He’s shaking his head now, lips tautening as he struggles to articulate. “I’m here, because you need me, but I can’t –”  
  
“So that’s it?” For a bright instant, she’s angry, but at once understands. She pushes a breath out through her nose. “Trust me to figure this out. I can do this. And… And if I have to do it with you at a distance, that’s fine.”  
  
“That’s fine,” he echoes, and regret sinks its acidic fingers into the pit of her belly. Had he felt betrayed, before, she can see it clearly, now.  
  
“I didn’t mean it like –”  
  
“I should go.” Jupiter opens her mouth, but her throat constricts before she can tell him to stay. An apology is all she can make.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah. So am I.” He turns to leave, and unable to watch, Jupiter retreats through the opposite doorway, bound for anywhere.

 

* * *

 

It is a peculiar novelty to see Kalique hide behind their mother, who, while living, might never have shielded her. These alcazars, now shrines, have become Kalique’s fortresses. Balem walks alongside her and wishes he had seen it sooner. He is too late, and there are ghosts upon him. They had been folded into music, shaken out with the first resonance of plucked strings. And now, the wound around him, threadlike and terrible. He sees Seraphi in marble statues between the lurking spirits, her repeating image a host of angels all with the same alabaster face. He knows no such creatures exist, and their originator, too, no longer walks these halls, or any. He knows that these are merely the stuff of primitive, earthly faiths. That does not keep them from dogging his steps. In not so many words, _this is the worst_.  
  
“You’ve not been listening to me at all, have you?” It is only then that Balem remembers Kalique once again, remembers that she was speaking. He glances sidelong at her, her lustrous dark hair (so painfully like mother’s) and quiet satisfaction. Her smile, however, is an irritable one, and the spark in her eyes is just a flicker of the almighty Abrasax temper. He stares into her until she blinks.  
  
“Have you said anything important?” Her smile widens, maintaining her cheerful façade that, to anyone else, is flawless. Balem, however, can almost hear her back teeth creaking as she struggles not to grind them.  
  
“Oh, terribly. I don’t suppose you know, yet, that I’ve reached out to the House of Orias. You know how much they’ve done for our family over the years. I believe they’re seeking another grant.” Balem says nothing, but becomes aware of his own arched eyebrows too late to conceal their tell. Kalique presses on, regardless. “Frankly, I think their Rhapsody is worth every credit, and given, ah, the state of your stock, you might be interested in courting them together? All this bad blood has been dreadful for business, brother, surely you must agree.”  
  
“Must I?”  
  
“I’ve seen the reports from your latest yield.” Kalique doesn’t click her tongue, but he can hear the _tsk_ in her voice. “The loss of your main refinery? An entire fleet of Shadows still being rebuilt? Years of inactivity? As much as I admire your business acumen, you can’t simply shrug that off.”  
  
“You believe you can offer more to them than I have?”  
  
“I believe our competitors stand a chance of approaching the quality of our serum. This is a House matter.” Kalique lets out a sigh. “At any rate, Alcyone and Grimaldus Orias will both be here in a matter of days to begin negotiations. I’d like it if you stayed and joined us. Besides, they are gasping to meet Jupiter.” Balem lets out a huff of breath.  
  
“Three days,” he allows.  
  
“Thank you.” Kalique’s smile, just for a moment, is perfectly sincere. “You know I would never waste your time.” He almost dares to think she will not mention Orus at all, but that hope is vain, and in hindsight, foolish. “I also heard, Balem, that one of your agents turned up dead on Orus. I can’t imagine what he must have been up to, so close by the Hall of Titles.”  
  
“Nor can I.” Balem sets his jaw. Someone had been careless. It is almost his inclination to blame Chicanery Night, but the rat splice’s business has never been with the personal disposal of operatives at the end of their usefulness. There will be a need to look a little farther down the line for that weak link.  
  
“Oh, and one more thing,” Kalique continues, having seen her fill. “Let me offer you a change of attire. Honestly, you look like a walking blemish.”  
  
“Very well.” Another concession, this time in the hopes that this will mean a moment alone. Kalique, of course, may not allow it, and he is in her den. She is painfully cognizant of this, and lets him dangle, glancing him over from head to foot once, and then again.  
  
“I’ll call for sims,” she says, her smile softening. It is something of a struggle to look nonchalant, but he manages well enough to conceal his satisfaction. Kalique claps her hands twice, and soon the sims arrive, their hair embedded with crystal prisms, rainbows flickering with every bow and curtsey. There is, for all of their glittering, no light behind their eyes. This is nothing new. Balem barely sees them in favour of keeping Kalique in his sights.  
  
“Kalique.” Her answering nod is just slightly apprehensive.  
  
“Balem.” And he parts from her in the wake of the mouthless sims.  
  
He is not quite in his body as he pads along behind them, some part of him straying between indifferent statues, studying their faces. When the sim puts their cool hands on his shoulders, he winces. They make a humming sound, which merits no response but a slight twitch of his fingers, enough to alert the sim of his permission to continue. He stirs again only when the sim touches the fastening on the back of his collar. He removes it himself, quietly surprised when another is brought. Was it an old one, forgotten? Or had Kalique had one crafted in advance of this visit? It is a white gold twin to the darker one he prefers, all the intricacies of the universe captured in a maze of circuitry, tiny planets made flat, each one in its place. A beautiful machine wound about his throat. It snaps into place, filling anew the imprints that its predecessor had left. It has all the weight of his mother’s hand on the base of his neck. He can almost feel her breath; hear her still. _These are the waters of life._ The memory alone tautens his chest, his ribcage suddenly too small to accommodate his writhing insides. He barely breathes, and newly adorned in blinding white, stands motionless. When they take the rings from his fingers, he does not feel the weight of the ones that replace them.  
  
Icaraxe has dropped away, and there is only clear nectar before him, alive and waiting to restore his body, freshly acquainted with age. She had let him grow old. His hands begin to shake. One of the sims makes another humming noise. The world does not return entirely, but what little reality comes seeping in ignites a sudden, terrible fury.  
  
“ _Leave me!_ ” Even the sims, little more than embodied chamber presences flinch, then flee before him. He has not visited this alcazar since its conception, and it has changed since then. There is no need to cloak it from the curious, probing creatures below, all of them encased in unmelting frost. Their mother no longer lives here, though her shades are everywhere. It should be unrecognizable without her. Yet, he knows the path from portal to shimmering portal, and in this, he knows Kalique. The main sphere of the alcazar will doubtless house the grandest part of the shrine. The steps he takes toward it are like his first. Her arms no longer await him, but some last, unsullied vestige does. In his veins, his blood clamours to pay homage. That sweet submission has fled with the last breath wrung out of his mother’s body, but he aches for it, still. There is nothing, now that can command him. He is free, and imprisoned, and there are none who can see the manacles that hang even now from his wrists. His breath is the sound of rattling chains.  
  
The light of innumerable candles greets him when he arrives, at last, at the main part of the shrine. They hang in the air, flickering almost in unison, disordered, save for the path cloven between them. And there, at the end of which, is her image, colossal as she had never been, but as he had always seen her. The silence breaks on his every footfall, on the rustling of his silks. All the old songs are echoing inside his head. It is deafening. He gazes up, and the sight of this likeness of her, so much more precise than the others, gnaws into his bones to get at his soul. He does not light a candle, but reaches out his fingers as if to smooth one of the stone folds of her dress.  
  
“Hello, Mother.”  


* * *

 

Running is no solution, but Jupiter can think of nothing else. Parting from Caine… Seeing him look at her like that… This place… She throws herself from portal to portal, as if one might simply cause her to dissolve. Her stomach only clenches, and clenches harder. And then, at last, she steps through one too many. The golden portal-light fades away and Jupiter becomes immediately aware that she has materialized from one disaster into another. If things had been bad, already, they could now become about a thousand times worse. Jupiter hadn’t spotted Balem from the last glass sphere she had passed through (that one empty but for a small altar, a bench, and at least a hundred candles). She has also never seen him wearing anything but black. The collar around his neck is white gold, now, the silk he’s swathed in is striking white, and he stands at the feet of the stone image of Seraphi Abrasax. Jupiter has never felt such nausea at the sight of what is, at a glance, her own face. The statue, which is and is not her likeness, is cut out of white marble, veined with cerulean blue. A candle is nestled in her hands, an offering, and behind her is an empty hourglass that stands as tall as the shrine. They are too high up to see the frozen surface of Icaraxe below, and instead a sea of shifting clouds reflect and refract in the polished crystal, visible through it and caught in its curving middle. Sun and candlelight passes through it, scattering warped rainbows on the transparent ground.  
  
Jupiter has barely finished praying that Balem does not turn around when he feels her eyes, and looks over his shoulder. For a moment, they are still. None of it seems real. But Balem, who stands transfixed between Jupiter and the carven image of his mother, is very corporeal. Their images superimpose before him, snapping together like two ends of a rubber band, stretched almost to breaking and then released. There is only one name for the look that crosses his face when he sees her. It is agony.  
  
“Don’t go.” Balem knows she is going to take a step back before she can shift her weight to do it. He lifts a hand, which quakes, and has no power to stop her, and yet she stays.  
  
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”  
  
“It was only a matter of time. Kalique has raised many of these… monuments, in the wake of our mother’s… Our mother…” He turns away from Jupiter, to the statue; the only solid thing in this room but for them. “This is the closest likeness, I’ve seen,” he says. Jupiter’s heart is pounding, and she doesn’t dare another step, towards Balem or otherwise. “The closest,” he repeats, “save for you.”  
  
“I’m not your mother.” The declaration comes out without a thought, and suddenly the ground beneath her feet feels less like tempered glass and more like ice in the spring. About to crack. Balem’s face contorts, and he screws his eyes shut. She can hear the hissing breath he sucks in through his nose. When she steps back, he hears, and cries out.  
  
“Don’t!”  
  
“I’m intruding,” Jupiter says, scrabbling for sense. “I should go. Kalique’s going to wonder where we are.” He’s looking at her again, something dark and glittering in his stare that she can’t quite name.  
  
“You wanted to understand, you said,” he murmurs. The whisper sounds of undertow, as if with each syllable he pulls on her will all his might, down toward the sickness that even now is eating him alive. “Should I make you?” he asks. Every instinct screams _run_. Run fast, and run far. Balem smiles, as though he’s seen that thought crossing her mind, and she can hear the echo of his reply. _No corner of the universe can hide you from me_. Little by little, his lips draw back from his teeth, and there is no warmth in his eye. “What difference will your understanding make? Even were it within your grasp?” Now he reaches out, both hands quaking as he walks toward her, childlike and ancient. Jupiter doesn’t dare move as he cups her face in his hands. “You will die,” he tells her. “You will die before you can see even half of it for the first time.” He grins as it if hurts, stretched taut and painful. “How could you… How could you?”  
  
“Balem –”  
  
“ _Don’t_.” When he cuts across her this time, the command is hushed. His grin is gone, a new solemnity taking its place as his fingertips drift, then rest on the back of her neck. Then he’s even closer. So close now that she can feel his breath. Hers has almost stopped. Jupiter swallows down the hard lump she hadn’t realized was forming in her throat. Her lips are dry, but she can’t bring herself to lick them. Balem closes his eyes, and presses his forehead against hers. His grip tightens on the back of her neck. “I _miss you_.”  
  
“I’m not –”  
  
“Please.” When Jupiter recoils anyway, Balem crumbles before her. It’s as though he stood only with the sustenance of that contact. Without it, he drops to his knees like a puppet severed of its strings.  
  
“I’m not your mother.”  
  
“And yet she stands before me.”  
  
It’s as if her body leaps into action of its own accord. Jupiter snatches him roughly up by the front of his clothes, too overwhelmed with frustration to wonder even for an instant at how soft it was. She wants to shake him. Instead, she drags him close, almost hard enough to pull him back onto his feet.  
  
“I am _not_ ,” she hisses, and now it’s for him to feel her breath ghost along his cheek, “your _goddamn mother_.”  
  
“You don’t remember.”  
  
“Because I _wasn’t there_.”  
  
“Some part of you –”  
  
“Shut up!” Her fists tighten in his silks, and she shakes him once, sharply. She’s not expecting it when he surges to his feet. His palm is hard in the small of her back as he pulls her against him, holds her there. There is a silence between them, and though white clouds swirl below and the sun breaks over and upon them, the world feels as if it is shrinking by the second. Then, a whisper.  
  
“There were so many others,” he breathes. “I know. But I have not failed as they did. I will not fail as they have.”  
  
“What the hell are you talking –” Before she can finish the question, Balem seizes her by the shoulders, and pushes her away. She rights herself in time to see the light in the room change, as the portal ignites again behind her.  
  
“There you both are!” Kalique chimes in, woven back into existence by the gold light of the portal. “I was beginning to think you meant to flee the planet, and I’ve had such a nice dinner planned…” Jupiter has a fraction of a second to school her expression before she turns. She sucks in a deep breath.  
  
“Great!” If her smile looks half as forced as it is, it will be a miracle. She can hear the rustle of silk over metal as Balem straightens out his clothes. And she can see it when Kalique notices. _This is the worst_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry the latest has taken so long! But here it is, at last. The longest chapter so far. Also known as: the chapter where I get Caine Wise mostly out of the story because I am staggeringly uninterested in him. Sorry Jucaine shippers, this is a Julem fic. Thank you everyone, for sticking around with me and this unbetaed mess of a story. I hope you enjoy. <3


	6. Oriasian Rhapsody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unnanounced guest arrives. Negotiations begin with the House of Orias, who specialize in humane Harvesting.

Chicanery Night is more than half-drunk and less than half-dressed when the FTL arrives. He isn’t certain if the blinding headache that arrives with it is the result of the cheap wine he’s been guzzling or from the message itself. He snatches the bottle from the nightstand and drains the last of it. Waste not, after all. Pulling his clothes back on after so much booze down the hatch is hardly an adventure any more. A lesser drunk might have missed a button, but not Chicanery. He manages all twenty-eight of them, and a shuttle request, without missing a beat. To think, he had almost had some hope of a few hours’ sleep, and now, instead, must cross the stars.  
  
It is trying enough to hold down a position that requires frequent space travel when one despises flying, and more so when it is necessary to work – sometimes closely – with Balem Abrasax. But Chicanery has always prided himself on his adaptability. He stuffs a flask into his pocket, classic silver and etched with the words ‘ _Everything in moderation_ ,’ slings an ever-ready travel bag over his shoulder, and sets out. The regular daylight hours of Icaraxe are not a fair trade for the horrifying glass floors of the alcazar there. His stomach lurches, but not from the drink.  
  
Heights are sickening. Ancient storms roaring just outside the window are livable, but staring down at what could at any time, become a catastrophic fall? The flask is a comfort. Not the most stalwart of companions, but a comfort. He had planned long ago to die drunk, if never dying at all was not an option. It staggers him to think of the near thousand years spent in the service of the House of Abrasax, and it staggers him even more to think that before them, he remains little more than a clever child. Or, perhaps, the drink does.  
  
By the time Chicanery boards the shuttle, prepped to ascend into Deimos’ turbulent sky, his guts are roiling and his head is pounding. He does not stumble, but touches the pilot’s arm. Mr. Karriax. Competent pilot, but generally untried, and one of the few lucky enough not to have been at the Jupiter Refinery when it went critical. Not much by way of a family, like most of the Sargorns. Imperfectly reliable, but perfectly expendable.  
  
“I may, ah…” His insides writhe. “Let’s make this an easy flight, shall we?” Chicanery manages a watery smile, but if it’s more a grimace, it will make little difference to the Sargorn, who likely struggles to interpret more human expressions. Not that he is the pinnacle of humanness. Whatever that is. Karriax is grim and indifferent, regardless.  
  
“No promises,” he rumbles. Chicanery’s ailing smile tautens around the insult he wills himself to keep behind his teeth.  
  
“I trust there’s no need to promise your best, Mr. Karriax. Is it very turbulent today?”  
  
“No more than usual.” Thank the stars for small favours. The journey would be unpleasant enough as it was. The ship waiting in orbit is little more than a skip. Next to an Abrasax clipper, it is barely a speck. And even with portalling, a day will pass on Earth before they reach Icaraxe. Chicanery suppresses a sigh.  
  
“Off we go, then.”  
  
“Off we go.”  
  
He closes his eyes as the shuttle lifts off. Everything begins to spin. It’s very much like being the sole occupant of a tin can that’s having the snuff kicked out of it. Chicanery can scarcely turn whiter, which does not prevent him from turning cyanotic instead. He lets his breath out slowly through his nose, opening his eyes to the perpetual night of Deimos’ dark half. The clouds rush by too quickly for his liking, and he relegates himself to a study of the floor, wringing his hands. Vesper and Axolorin fled, Quetzalk disposed of, new contacts deployed on Orus, and word from the Harvestmaster demanding another audience, but not the Harvest of Melastra. It isn’t yet the waking nightmare that the investigation into Jupiter Jones had become. In fact, he is almost about to count his blessings when the shuttle gives a mighty shudder. The back of his throat tastes of acid, and he wrings his hands harder, trying to recall the brief time in his life when he had dared to think he might grow accustomed to flying. Before the Recurrence, when Greeghan had still been alive, and Balem had been well in control of Abrasax Industries. Chicanery had barely been drinking, then. What could drive him down the bottle when he had successfully concealed the murder of one of the most powerful women in the universe? Not quite singlehandedly, of course, but it had seemed… Everything had seemed so bright. Terrible, in some ways, but so, too, the Harvest.  
  
That brightness had diminished in favour of more uncertainty, more travel than he had endured in centuries, a refinery eaten alive by a gas giant… A wiser rat would have fled this sinking ship long ago. But Chicanery Night remembers. He remembers being a child with a fistful of Entitled silks. That debt has been repaid many times over. The compulsion to pay it just once more time over lingers, even so. The more things change, after all. It rankles that he shall never be known for his fealty.  
  
Chicanery disembarks from shuttle to skip in a contemplative haze, barely noticing who it is that presses pre-portal medication into his hands. Not Karriax, at any rate. And good riddance. He swallows the pills dry, blinking listlessly out the window as the shuttle disappears back into Deimos’ atmosphere. It’s odd to miss a colour, but he yearns for umber. For home. The memory isn’t far, but the reality… He fiddles with the lid of his flask, but doesn’t open it. Soon everything is bright, so bright, and then, with a snap, the endless black resumes its office. His stomach lurches again. He will feel every hour of this journey. Worse, there is no promise that arriving on Icaraxe will be much by way of a reprieve. In fact, it is more likely to be dreadful. He unscrews the lid of his flask and drinks. The whiskey rolls out amber and full of fire, and the coil in his belly gets hotter. When he replaces the lid, it’s with a sigh. _Moderation_. And the flask disappears back into the depths of his pocket. Dimly he recalls this new pilot is called Skrava. Like the whiskey, it changes nothing, but allows him to pretend he feels a little better.  
  
By the time the skip enters Icaraxe’s orbit, Chicanery’s whiskey is long gone. He’s in the middle of pulling his fine white hair into a braid when he sees it. They are not alone over Icaraxe. It is not an Abrasax clipper that makes its lazy way around the second of the planet’s moons. Not razor sharp, but feathery, instead. Some abstraction of a primordial bird of prey, flying the silver and viridian of the House of Orias. Their presence is not unexpected. It’s the smaller vessel in tow that makes him wish his flask full up again.  
  
“Fuckin’ Titus is here,” the pilot groans before Chicanery can utter a word. “Shit day for you, Night.”  
  
“Please, we mustn’t speak ill of our betters.” He grimaces. “Send an FTL to Lord Balem, will you please? Best we get ahead of this if it’s not too late. And for goodness’ sake, mind your language.” Skrava lets out a throaty laugh.  
  
“Aye, sir.”  


* * *

 

  
Balem was prepared to abandon this damnable place well before the FTL arrived. Ancient voices echo inside his skull, pounding against the bone, and on each breath hangs the scent of Jupiter’s hair. The alcazar is an utter paralytic. By the time, word reaches him that Mr. Night has arrived in orbit with word from the Harvestmaster, Balem has already forgotten commanding that these messages be delivered in person. He knows the danger of letting the world flake away little by little. This is how he fell, before, his throat scraped raw from screaming. That he had survived is no consolation, and now he has this matter to attend.  
  
He does not thank Mr. Night for the news of Titus’ intrusion, responding only to confirm the message had arrived at all. The word sent from the Harvestmaster can wait. That done, he sets out in search of Kalique, meaning to choke the life out of her for bringing Titus here without informing him first. He comes upon her in one of the smaller garden spheres, sitting on the edge of an alabaster fountain, with a sheave and a plate of Cerisean sugar. She has always had a hummingbird’s affection for sweets. Balem isn’t certain whether he wants to spill the plate into the water, first, or push her in. He thinks of holding her under the water as he watches the twitch of her pulse in her throat. To her credit, Kalique senses the danger instantly.  
  
“You look cross.”  
  
“You did not inform me.”  
  
“Of what? I don’t understand.”  
  
“Titus is accompanying House Orias?”  
  
“He is _what?_ ”  
  
“Do not play the fool, Kalique.” The colour rises in Balem’s cheeks, the heat of it prickling all the way to the back of his neck.  
  
“I know better than that. Truly, brother, I hadn’t heard…” Kalique sighs. “We had best tell Jupiter. She’s on-planet at the moment.”  
  
“Since when?”  
  
“This morning. She asked to see the surface over dinner last night. You don’t remember?” Concern turns down the corners of her red mouth. “You know it isn’t my habit to pry, but are you quite all right? You haven’t been entirely yourself.”  
  
“Have I not?” He blinks once, twice, then turns on his heel to leave, fully expecting that Kalique ought to allow it. He does not foresee when she stretches out a hand, hooks her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He stops, reminded of a day long past. Her hands were smaller, then. Their hearts beat in unison. Her body has pulled him into its rhythm, or his has pulled her. It does not matter which. He cannot bear to turn and face her. “We’ll go together,” he rasps, “to speak with Jupiter before Titus and the others arrive. I will have words with our brother to afford you time. I assume you will need to arrange accommodations.” Her grip on his arm slackens.  
  
“I’ll have Malidictes stall their descent,” she says, not letting go without briefly squeezing. There’s a breath-long silence. “I’ve sent the FTL.” Balem strokes the node behind his ear, and the garden is consumed by ice. The frozen tunnel curves out of sight, echoing with footsteps and the last gasp of Icaraxe. Embedded in the tunnel walls, an ancient sea creature opens its many mouths in a mortal shriek that none will ever hear. Balem studies the sharp edges of its thousands of teeth, the futility of its maw. It takes only a moment before Jupiter Jones rounds the corner and sees. She looks in wonder at the frozen monster, but shrieks at the sight of him.  
  
“Shit!”  
  
“In a word,” Kalique says dryly as she swirls into being behind him.  
  
“Is… Is everything all right?” Jupiter frowns, raking gloved fingers through her hair. The cold cannot reach Balem, or Kalique, for that matter, but it turns Jupiter’s breath to mist. “Is something happening?”  
  
“We have… Unexpected company,” Kalique begins.  
  
“Titus has accompanied House Orias to the planet. I believe they have already begun their descent.” Unlike his sister, Balem prefers to waste no time skirting the matter. Even the ruddiness that the cold has put in Jupiter’s face seems to leave it.  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” Jupiter mutters. Balem smiles at her. It is at once frustrating and perversely funny to hear such profanities light on his mother’s lips. As if she had been rewritten by some poor fool who hadn’t the vaguest knowledge of her character. Who had never met her, known her. Still, that she wrinkles her nose in disgust at the mention of Titus feels like a victory.  
  
"And I was having such a nice morning,” she sighs, and it sounds like recompense. “Guess I’m heading back?”  
  
“I’ll meet you when you disembark,” Kalique tells her. “I hardly meant to introduce you to House Orias dressed like _that_.” Seeing no need to listen further, Balem again strokes his fingers over the implant behind his ear, and he is in the alcazar again, looking at Kalique as she stares out through the glass. Her mind is elsewhere, yet to return from the surface. He studies her a moment, motionless as if she was painted in oil, and then abandons the garden sphere. He seldom feels that there is little time, but nevertheless recognizes the need for haste when it needles him.  
  
He is expected aboard Titus’ frankly unimpressive ship. The fortunes of the youngest Abrasax have been mediocre since his attempt on Jupiter’s life, and the large clipper had been repossessed not long thereafter. Balem is inclined to think it must be Kalique who keeps Titus from living in squalor. She is, as ever, invested in keeping up appearances. The usual menagerie of splices greets him as he boards. A woman with a tail of iridescent feathers, another with a plume on her brow. Birds of paradise, and the one, stalwart splice… What was her name? Either way, she is on the bay, heels clicking, overlarge ears pricked.  
  
“Lord Titus asks –”  
  
“What he asks is insignificant,” Balem snaps, and brushes by.  
  
“ _Brother_.” The voice sounds from above as Titus descends the stairway leading down from the upper observation deck. He looks a little sharper than he once did, with just a hint of age beginning around his eyes, but raises his arms like a child demanding to be picked up when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. It is an old gambit, and there had been a time when it might have wriggled in under Balem’s skin. Today, however, his temper manifests as a sort of masklike tranquility. Titus is not expecting it when he takes him into his arms. The eldest Abrasax thinks of it like holding a dagger in one’s chest to keep from bleeding to death. In the moment of surprise that silences Titus, Balem cups the back of his neck to keep him still as he whispers into his ear.  
  
“Embarrass our sister today, Titus, and it will be necessary to invent a new word for what I do to you.” He lets go.  
  
“There’s nothing quite like absence to make the heart grow fonder, is there?” Titus cries, recovering his composure in an instant, and grinning that insufferable grin. “I have _missed_ you,” he says.  
  
“I expect that is not why you are here.”  
  
“Not entirely,” Titus admits. “I was having a chat with Alcyone Orias – her House still supplies my Rhapsody, after all, and I do still retain some future prospects – and she happened to mention that she had arranged a visit with our dear sister.” The cant of his head is petulant, and to Balem, seems a silent demand for a slap in the mouth. He does not lift a finger. “I will admit I wasn’t expecting to see you.”  
  
“Then we are both disappointed.”  
  
“At least we’ve something in common.” Balem sets his jaw, and Titus tsks at him. “Don’t look so sour, brother. How long has it been since the three of us have been together for longer than a moment or two?”  
  
“There may be a reason our visits are as brief as they are.”  
  
“But you’ve come to escort me to the planet, haven’t you?” Balem spares not another word in preference of a long, withering stare before he turns his back, beckoning over his shoulder for Titus to follow. The shuttle, Balem decides grimly, is not going to be nearly large enough for comfort.

 

* * *

 

  
“This is _not_ what I thought you meant when you said you wanted to show me your closet.” Jupiter hardly knows where to begin with the monstrous room Kalique has brought her to. _Big surprise, Jupe, everything’s amped up to eleven in this place_. The crystal chandeliers do not hang suspended from the ceiling, but float above their heads. The grandest of these presides over an octagonal platform, each side assigned a display case. The gowns inside make her remembered envy at Katherine Dunlevy’s closet full of McQueen’s and Ricci’s laughable. Jupiter begins to wonder at what point any of this will begin to seem normal. Should any of this seem normal? Judging by Kalique’s grin at her expense, it’s a few thousand years off, either way. The vaulted ceiling lets in the aurous light of Icaraxe’s sun, which pools in the centre of the room, disturbed only by the shadow of the slowly revolving chandelier. There are four divans, in all, sprawled out as if one might exhaust oneself trying on dresses. Given the sheer size of this “closet,” that is increasingly a possibility.  
  
“So?” Kalique asks.  
  
“There are couches in here.” That merits a crystalline chuckle.  
  
“Oh, Jupiter,” Kalique shakes her head, then claps her hands sharply together, twice. “Something…” She looks over at Jupiter for a calculating moment. “Something blue, Sendi, please.”  
  
– _Right away, Lady Kalique!_ A voice that sounds like Tels, but isn’t, chirps in answer, and the room is bathed in cool white light. One of the display cases shimmers, and opens. The dress that the Chamber Presence selects makes Jupiter put a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. She recovers herself, but only just.  
  
“Well,” she mutters, “at least I’m awake.”  
  
The gown is set with tiny opals that against its deep blue, give the impossible impression of stars in a clear, afternoon sky. The sleeves billow just right, and look as if they’ll reach just to her elbows, light gossamer embroidered with iridescent constellations.  
  
“I’m afraid there isn’t much time,” Kalique cautions. “Perhaps later, we might have a chance to –”  
  
“Play dress-up?” She hadn’t meant to ruffle her, but Jupiter sees it when Kalique turns pink. “You know what? Sure.” When she smiles this time, there is no question of its sincerity. Just for a moment, something childish flits over Kalique’s deceptively young face, one of those curious regressions that the Entitled seem prone to. Immortality, for them seems to mean a return to youths past. Just as curiously, there is no time for ruminations.  
  
“And the dress?”  
  
“I think it’ll be just fine. Sendi’s got good fashion sense.”  
  
– _You are too kind, Your Majesty!_ chimes Sendi. _Shall I have sims in to adorn you?_  
  
“I… Ah…” a glance at Kalique, who nods. “Sure?”  
  
There is not even a minute lost in waiting before the sims arrive, eerily mouthless and purposeful. Jupiter suppresses a shudder, and turns her mind to more pressing matters.  
  
“Kalique, if it’s all right…”  
  
“Oh! Privacy. Certainly.” And while she does not leave, she turns her back. One less pair of eyes, even when it is a pair belonging to a woman who may or may not think of her as her mother, does not make being helped into the dress more comfortable. The process is effortless, however, in a way that seems impossible for such extravagance. The dress wears like a dream, even with the plunging neckline, which had given Jupiter at least a fraction of a second’s pause. It wouldn’t do to fall out of the dress in front of intergalactic high society. The softness of the silk, if it is silk at all, and not some alien fabric designed to be even softer, brings with it a visceral pleasure that for a few seconds, she loses herself. She can’t help but spin around, just once, letting the hem swirl around her ankles, miraculously light. The shoes are not the daunting stilettos of visits past, but sensible heels, blue to match, but with opal toe-caps. The fit is perfect, which still comes to Jupiter as something of a surprise. Nothing about Entitled life is a struggle, it seems. At least, until ethics come into the equation.  
  
“I guess you can, uh, turn back around?” Jupiter says, as the reverie passes, and the sims turn their silent attention on her hair, combing and parting and pinning up. She wants to ask why they have no mouths. Kalique turns slowly, and a wistful look darkens her countenance.  
  
“You look wonderful already.” She takes a pause, setting her jaw. “Mother very seldom wore blue. And _never_ opals. I couldn’t imagine why.” The figure in white reflecting in the glass walls of the alcazar returns to Jupiter in a cold rush of remembered horror. The shake of her head that follows is involuntary. She swallows, and speaks before Kalique can make anything of it.  
  
“Tell me about this House Orias. Why are they coming here?”  
  
“We’ve been doing business with them since the beginning. They supply a product – Rhapsody, it’s called – that’s essential to the Harvest,” Kalique explains as a sim begins to spray foundation over Jupiter’s cheek. It tingles, and the familiar tautness makes her stomach give an almighty lurch. She lifts a hand.  
  
“Stop. Wait.”  
  
“Is something the matter?”  
  
“What’s in this? Is there…”  
  
– _It is ReCell, Your Majesty. Its formula makes it particularly useful in cosmetic-_  
  
“No. No, no, no. I don’t want it. Take it off, please. I don’t want that.” The sim frowns wordlessly, as if it can be confused, but nevertheless obeys as Kalique looks on, her expression unreadable. “Let’s tone down the makeover,” Jupiter decides. “Tell me more about House Orias?” Kalique’s obliging nod is not quite understanding. The sim that had been applying Jupiter’s makeup slips a silver torque around her neck, instead. It’s cold, and heavy, and for a moment evocative of another collar wound about another throat. Kalique seems not to make this connection, or if she does, it does not give her any pause.  
  
“Alcyone Orias is the current head of House, and has been, I think, even when Balem was new,” she says. “The woman is _magnificent_. My mother was a great friend of hers. She’ll be accompanied by her sole Primary, Grimaldus. She calls him her son, but they share no genetic relation, so there's no need to wonder why they look nothing alike.” As Kalique goes on, the sims finish with Jupiter’s hair, embedded now with sapphire-studded barrettes, and pinned against her nape. “You might like him,” Kalique continues. “He’s very, ah… Well. You’ll see. At any rate, I have a feeling the two of you will have a great deal to talk about.”  
  
“Any particular reason?”  
  
“Why, he’s a Recurrence.” A new twist wrenches in the pit of Jupiter’s ailing belly. She’s uncertain if what she feels is sympathy or fear. Either way, the time has come to make these new acquaintances… Allies, perhaps? It’s a struggle to see this as anything but a new complication in a tangle that is already thousands of years old. Kalique is mercifully quiet on the walk to the docking bay, nothing passing between them but the quiet ruffling of silk against silk.  
  
They arrive just in time to watch a jagged, Abrasax ship descending. Jupiter steels herself. The vessel is too large to be a shuttle, and yet nowhere near the magnificence of a clipper, almost pitiful compared to the usual Abrasax grandeur. Jupiter decides immediately that there has not been quite enough time between this and the last time she saw the smug Third Primary. She almost leans over to Kalique, who stands primly to her left, to ask her why they need to bother at all. Then, a beam of shimmering blue deposits Titus on the landing platform. He steps briskly out of the light, looking very satisfied, as Balem descends behind him, looking tremendously dour.  
  
“Sister!” Titus holds out his arms, and Kalique closes the distance, enough to take his hands in hers. Jupiter, the while, dares to hope against hope that he will simply ignore her. That hope is dashed the moment Kalique releases his hands. He turns, and smirks. “Jupiter Jones.”  
  
“Titus.” She utters his name with the same inflection with which one might mutter _jack ass_. “You look good,” she can’t help the dig. “Aging well.” To her surprise, she hears Balem snort. Titus doesn’t give so much as a glance over his shoulder.  
  
“Still bitter, I see,” he observes, “and still so lovely. I must wonder how the years have managed to be so kind to you.”  
  
Jupiter bristles, but before she can open her mouth, Kalique points skyward, drawing everyone’s attention.  
  
“Our guests are arriving,” she interjects. Titus smiles at Jupiter like some fanged thing whetting its teeth. Behind him, Balem tightens his jaw. There’s only a moment or two, it feels like, to arrange themselves. Jupiter affixes herself to Kalique’s side, in favour of avoiding being caught between Balem and Titus. It isn’t ideal, but then, nothing about this situation is ideal. The silence is tense as they watch the House of Orias’ ship. Despite its size, it sets down with the ease of a feather drifting to earth. The doors do not so much open as unfurl, as the honour guard rushes out. Winged creatures, each with the head of a bird of prey. They are only seven, but armoured in some kind of green-tinted steel. Their glittering wings put Jupiter in mind of Skyjackers, though she’s yet to meet any like these. They seem not to be splices, but more akin to the Sargorn, bipedal, though not entirely humanoid. Their taloned feet click against the smooth glass floor.  
  
“The Aviaganti serve the House of Orias almost exclusively,” Kalique supplies without looking even out of the corner of her eye at Jupiter.  
  
“They are addicted to their Rhapsody,” Balem cuts in, breaking his self-imposed silence, at last.  
  
“Cheerful, isn’t it?” Titus grins, ignorant of the look his elder brother gives him, but only by choice. One of the Aviaganti, this one with the head of an osprey, gives a musical-sounding cry, and their small ranks part, forming an aisle to give passage to another of those strange, ancient creatures, the Entitled.  
  
The sole primary heir to Alcyone Orias moves with an avian grace that makes him look at home among his feathered guards. He cuts a skeletal silhouette, only enhanced by his mane of fiery hair that falls in loose curls just shy of his narrow shoulders. Even at this distance, Jupiter can see that his eyes are an otherworldly yellow. Like an owl’s, almost, if only there was not such an odd softness in them. He stretches out a bone-thin hand to guide a woman, surely the House matriarch, from the ship. She is nearly a head taller than her chosen heir, and her dark hand stands out against his lily white one. Clad in layers of shimmering green and silver, she moves effortlessly, and in her magnificent black curls are strewn countless beads of light. These glimmer gently, as though a faerie kingdom had made her hair the seat of its power. Each step she takes jingles slightly, tiny bells sewn into the hems of her flowing sleeves. She looks as though she has emerged from some antediluvian fable, pure timeless grace. It isn’t until she catches her eye that Jupiter realizes she has been neither blinking nor breathing.  
  
Movement beside her returns Jupiter to the present as Kalique strides evenly forth to meet her guests not quite halfway. Not wanting to be left alone with Balem on one side, and Titus on the other, Jupiter falls into step behind her as she makes her salutations.  
  
“Welcome to Icaraxe.”  
  
“At long last!” Alcyone replies. “You look radiant, my darling.”  
  
“And you.”  
  
“Ah, but it’s an effort. I haven’t your brothers to keep me young.”  
  
“She does that just as well without us, I assure you,” Titus quips, slick as oil.  
  
“I see that you remain a flatterer.”  
  
“ _Charmer_.”  
  
Alcyone lets out a rich laugh at that.  
  
“Indeed.” The eldest Abrasax has meanwhile resumed his silence, though a glance passes between him and Grimaldus. Jupiter cannot name the nuance that makes her think it, but just by that passing look, it is obvious that they must hate each other. Theirs is a look more fit to pass over a battlefield between ancient foes. Kalique, ever able to feel the slightest bit of tension in a room, takes it upon herself to speak through the half-beat of quiet that follows.  
  
“Ah, but allow me to introduce Jupiter Jones. Jupiter, this is the Lady Alcyone, and Lord Grimaldus Orias.” Jupiter offers a hand, and Alcyone clasps it warmly.  
  
“I knew Seraphi very well,” she says. “I hope with time, I will come to know you just as well.”  
  
“I’d like that,” Jupiter says, almost able to taste it when her mouth floods with Entitled politesse. Alcyone smiles, and it is as dazzling as her laughter, then turns to her companion.  
  
“Do say hello, my love.” He cants his head, silent, before he offers his hands. The silence is contagious, and no one speaks. Jupiter hesitates, a nervous glance catching on his unnatural eyes before she places her hands in his. He kisses the back of both of her hands with lips softer than smoke, as if to confer a blessing upon her. Time seems to slow around them, and in the stillness she can almost hear what he might say. _I was you, once_. He gives her hands a gentle squeeze, before he lets them go. Not beside her, but near, Balem bristles.  
  
“Jupiter,” Grimaldus says her name with the same care he took in kissing the backs of her hands. “It is… It is truly wonderful to meet you.” His voice is a melody unto itself, a reanimating counterpoint to his silence. “Forgive me, if I am strange… I… You are…” He glances to Alcyone, who speaks in his stead.  
  
“This is the first time my son has met another Recurrence.”  
  
“Uh... Same,” is all Jupiter can manage, and she does it in little more than a whisper. She isn’t certain when her chest got so tight, but now it feels as though she’s being squeezed. Kalique, pertinent as ever, breaks the brief pause that follows before it can stretch, and the spell is broken.  
  
“Well then,” she says, “shall we? The garden spheres are magnificent this time of day, and I’ve had refreshments arranged. I hope there’s no need to get right to business.”  
  
“Not at all,” Alcyone allows. “You’ll be joining us, as well, I hope, young man?” To Jupiter’s great surprise, Alcyone has her flinty eyes set on Balem, who even then has such a distance in his expression that it’s easy to suspect that he has seen the very beginning of time. He blinks that odd, off-tempo blink, and Jupiter knows instantly that he is about to lie.  
  
“With pleasure,” he says. Titus, who may have invented deception itself, makes a point of catching her eye, quirking a skeptical brow, which she ignores. Alcyone beckons Balem ahead of her, to walk alongside Kalique instead, which might have left Jupiter with Titus had Grimaldus not elected to walk three abreast with them, instead. A backwards glance from Alcyone dismisses the Aviaganti, who retire to the ship with a rattling of armour and a rustle of feathers. Quiet as a ghost, Grimaldus slips a hand onto Jupiter’s shoulder.  
  
“I dearly wish to have a word,” he tells her. “I hope you will allow it.”  
  
“S-sure… Yeah.” Ahead of them, Kalique and Balem pass through a portal with Alcyone close behind. Titus pauses on the threshold and beckons.  
  
“Our turn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very special thanks to [Vivian](http://http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivian) who read over the unbetaed version of Chapter Six and saved me from a number of foolish mistakes. ♥


	7. Invites and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invitations are extended. Jupiter sees an old familiar face.

Awe is swiftly becoming one of Jupiter’s most stalwart companions. As the light of the portal dissipates to reveal the garden sphere, she almost forgets that she ought to continue walking. Kalique was right about the time of day. The sunlight casts its gold into the clouds, gathered about the garden sphere. It hangs somewhat apart from the others, which glimmer in the distance, some partly obscured in golden wisps of cloud. Icaraxe’s surface is almost imperceptible. They are somewhere else, floating on some unknown axis. No worldly concern can reach them, here, even if a changeless place like Icaraxe had concern to offer. Another body of cloud passes overhead, dappling the golden expanse with its black shadow. Within the sphere, the garden drifts in breathless majesty.  
  
“You’ve outdone yourself, Kalique.” Alcyone steps immediately and unceremoniously out of her shoes, going barefoot over the gunmetal grass, strewn with sapphire clovers. It encircles a flat expanse of glass, bare, save for the centre, where a tree bows beneath the curved ceiling. It looks most like a weeping willow at a glance, save that the leaves are iridescent azure, and the bark is shining bronze **.** The roots snake below the floor, visible through the glass, and suspended in a familiar ice blue. Jupiter parts her lips to ask, but then swallows the question. Is this what Kalique meant all that time ago, about closing her eyes? Jupiter looks, and confides the sight to memory. Better, for now, to remember, than to speak. The arrival of the House of Orias had brought with it a unique opportunity. Jupiter is uneager to learn about Seraphi and the business she so excelled in, but to hear it from someone with no – or at least _different_ – emotional baggage might come with some clarity.  
  
She watches as the group of Entitled move over the grass, never seeming quite as alien as they do, then, in the shade of that monstrous willow. They exist in some intergalactic Eden, and she is a trespasser among them, excommunicated from the garden long ago. Better to live as an exile from such a paradise than to be as they are, bearing the price of their awful beauty on their every breath. How many lives had been consumed between the five of them? Jupiter’s heart sinks. The six of them. There is no denying her complicity, now. It’s sickening to know that Balem is right. How can she hope to push for any kind of reform when the holdings of one member of an Entitled House could take more than a lifetime to survey? How much poisonous nectar would she need to take in to banish it, make it clean? Could it even be done?  
  
“So _glum_ , Miss Jones,” Titus is on her like a crow on carrion. His sudden voice in her ear makes her flinch, swallow a curse, and spit out an insult.  
  
“Get bent!”  
  
“We really must settle our differences,” he tsks.  
  
“Or you could just stay the hell away from me. That’s an option.”  
  
“Is it? You know, it makes me wonder,” he begins, unfazed. Jupiter suppresses a grimace, and braces herself. He has a light, youthful voice, but to hear it is to be subject to an onslaught. By now, she knows her armour has chinks in it, and knows just as well that he’s likely to find them in a matter of seconds. “You seem to be quite comfortable with Balem,” he says. “But I thought your first meeting went along far worse than ours. A refinery destroyed, the two of you nearly killed.” Jupiter makes to turn away, then, but he raises his voice, just slightly. It isn’t enough to draw the attention of the others, ahead of them. “And I wonder,” he continues, merciless, “how you’ve managed to forget that. Don’t tell me after such dreadful strife you prefer _Balem_.”  
  
_Well, he’s not a lying sack of shit_ , is the retort that comes to mind first, but isn’t entirely accurate.  
  
“We made an agreement,” she says, nearly having to make a conscious effort to relax her jaw before she can speak, “I’m here to hold up my end.”  
  
“My, my, Miss Jones. Where _ever_ have I heard that argument before?” She doesn’t look at him, and doesn’t answer, looking to the others, instead. Kalique and Alcyone saunter arm-in-arm while Grimaldus follows with his mother’s shoes dangling from his long fingers. He says something not quite audible, and the women laugh.  
  
Only Balem pauses, twisting his body to look behind him, as the gleaming collar about his throat makes it more an effort to turn his head. An option presents itself, one that might extricate her from Titus’ soft-voiced needling, though it quickly becomes a matter of internal debate whether it is better to stay and be pricked, or to go and give credence to the barb. Jupiter picks up her pace, closing the distance between her and Balem.  
  
“We don’t have to stick around for this, do we?” she asks, in an urgent whisper. Balem raises his eyebrows. He smiles, and it’s a bare, crooked thing.  
  
“I’ve agreed to stay for the negotiations, when they begin,” he says. “The House of Orias invented Rhapsody. It’s been sewn on every Harvested planet since the beginning.”  
  
“So you’re trying to stay in their good books.”  
  
“In a manner of speaking. There is no better supplier, and they do not suffer rivals for long.” The forthcoming nature of his explanation and the sense of commiseration that follows are profoundly discomfiting. Behind her, she hears Titus chuckle. He brushes past them to catch up with the others, leaving her not quite alone with Balem, though it almost feels that way. His isolation is invasive, and the world constricts around them.  
  
“Miss me?” Titus calls out to the others, but even his voice seems muffled, somehow, and not by the distance.  
  
“We should speak,” Balem whispers. Jupiter outright snorts at him.  
  
“Get in line.” It’s easier to make light than she expects, especially given how little they’ve spoken since she stumbled upon him in the shrine, all dressed in white, and mourning.  
  
“Grimaldus?”  
  
“You two have history, huh?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Not friends?”  
  
“There is no need to be.” Jupiter opens her mouth to suggest that this might be part of his problem, and nothing interrupts her but a desire to disengage. If that’s even possible, mired up to her neck as she is. A slight change of subject is better.  
  
“You know,” she begins carefully, “I’ve been hearing a lot of fuss about this Rhapsody stuff, but I’m not exactly clear on what it is.”  
  
“You would to better to ask Alcyone,” Balem’s reply is languid, but not idle. It’s meant to leave her dangling, and she does, for a beat or two. “It is an anaesthetic,” he explains. The look he studies her with is scouring, as he continues. “It is deployed before the Harvest, to ensure that the livestock feels no pain during the threshing.”  
  
“That’s….” Jupiter shakes her head.  
  
“You wished to know.”  
  
“Yep,” she sighs in answer, rubbing the back of her neck. It’s too late to soothe the increasing tension building there. The torque around her neck, which she had nearly forgotten about, is cool, and oddly grounding. Balem looks her over once, and then moves to catch up with the others. It’s almost too easy to fall into stride with him.  
  
“What grim expressions!” Alcyone tsks as they approach. “Such sour faces will spoil everyone’s appetite.” Across the way, a portal opens to admit a long table, hovering on clawed feet. It is flanked on either side by more of Kalique’s servants, these with grand transparent wings. Like the sims from earlier, they, too, have only smooth skin where their mouths ought to be.  
  
“Oh, Kalique,” Titus breathes, “you shouldn’t have.” Jupiter can almost hear Kalique reply, _I didn’t_ , when she only smiles. The winged servants guide the table into the shade of the bent tree, where slender branches hang down around them. More flutter down out of the tree, perhaps having been instructed to wait the whole while, rolling out a pale blue carpet for them to sit on. And these are joined by smaller creatures, mouthless and with the same glass wings, who bear cushions, and trays of those odd blue strawberries. Before long, the table is covered in absurd and unnameable dainties. Everything seems to be unnatural in colour. Golds, and silvers, mineral hues that shimmer like steel, or shift like candlelight over smoke.  
  
“Please, sit,” Kalique beckons. Alcyone moves as easily over the carpet as she did over the grass, and takes her seat across from her host. The gesture she makes is barely a twitch of her jewelled fingers, but it is enough to compel Grimaldus to one end of the table. Jupiter finds herself suddenly and sickeningly aware of the fact that she has no concept whatsoever of the etiquette required in these situations.  
  
“Uh…” The sound comes out, unbidden, and uncertain. Kalique rescues her.  
  
“Come sit by me, Jupiter, won’t you?” She takes Jupiter by the hand, seating her at the corner of the table. Settling down onto the cushions is an awkward affair, and Jupiter struggles somewhat with the gown. The others, with all of their layers of silk and brocade, manage it with such ease it feels almost like a concerted effort to embarrass her. Grimaldus, now seated to her right, catches her eye once her fumbling is done, and smiles. A chill works its way up and down her backbone. She manages not to shudder, but only just, and only by turning her attention to the view.  
  
From under the tree, the table faces out towards the glass walls, and the expanse of cloud that lies beyond. They’re seated in convenient pairs; Alcyone and Grimaldus on one side of the table, herself and Kalique on another. Balem is stuck with Titus, this time, but so far, he is managing to look filled with existential boredom over teeth-grinding annoyance. They move slowly, look out over the clouds until the silence – for Jupiter, at least – is nearly uncomfortable.  
  
“Please,” as always, it is Kalique’s task to gently disturb the quiet. “Help yourselves.”  
  
No one moves, and their stillness lasts long enough to allow Jupiter to sense that the politics are already underway. It’s a surprise when Balem is the first to stir, reaching for a crystal decanter of opalescent liquid, which he pours for Alcyone. He cradles the small glass carefully in his hand, as if he might let it slip from his fingers. As if he dare not hold any tighter, and shatter it. Alcyone plucks it from his grasp like a daisy. That simple exchange alone is nearly a dance. She sips slowly, then pours a second helping into her glass. She does not drink it herself, but offers it to Grimaldus. His soft ‘thank you, mother,’ is the only thing that troubles the silence. Even Titus is quiet, though when Jupiter steals a glance, she can see him intent on Balem. What he sees, however, is beyond her. The First Primary of the House of Abrasax is so still she can barely see him breathe.  
  
From Jupiter’s right, Grimaldus lifts a cluster of silver not-grapes from a wide-mouthed bowl. The easy grace of his fingers is mesmerizing. Intrusive thoughts follow, feeling as if they could be memories. He sets the grapes gently on her plate as if for fear of bruising them. His hand retracts, and the odd half-remembered feeling vanishes. She takes one of the silver fruit from the bunch, and tries to ignore the eyes on her as she slips it into her mouth. The skin is crisp, and the flesh is a little firmer than she expects. It floods her mouth with metallic sweetness. She isn’t certain why it makes her think of blood.  
  
Jupiter nearly fails to notice Kalique’s hand on her arm, just under the low table, where no one else can see. She taps, twice, and looks surreptitiously between Jupiter and a plate of the strawberries. Jupiter frowns for a moment before she realizes. It must be the person on the right who serves whosoever is on their left. Seeing no utensils, Jupiter reaches for the familiar. Somewhat. She takes a strawberry, and sets it down on the bronze plate in front of Kalique. Dully, she notes that what little silverware there is matches the bark of the tree that dominates the room. All of this passes in taut, but comfortable silence. Kalique says nothing as she serves Titus, who in turn makes an offering of fruit to Balem. They most resemble gold mulberries, each meticulously stuffed with cream, and Balem ignores them utterly. He does serve Alcyone, however, this time the same silver not-grapes that Jupiter is gingerly picking at. One of the glass-winged servants passes it between the two of them, which Alcyone seems not to mind.  
  
With one lap around the table complete, it seems such formalities are less required. Kalique pointedly serves Titus again, to make it apparent that the dainties on the table could be served to her at any time. Her strawberries disappear in short order. Kalique’s hand is on Jupiter’s, again. Her grip tightens when Jupiter’s hand hovers over a small slice of layered cake, topped with colourful and predictably unnameable fruit.  
  
“This one?” Jupiter asks, which elicits a soft hiss from Kalique, and the tiniest of smiles from Alcyone who has noticed them. Balem, the while, has not touched his plate, newly populated with an oblong pastry that looks like an éclair but could taste like anything. It feels like a mercy when Alcyone speaks at last.  
  
“I must thank you again for agreeing to see us, Kalique,” she says. “I hope you’ll allow us the chance to return the same hospitality. Indeed, permit me to extend that invitation to the three of you. I understand, after all, a certain someone is celebrating a birthday very soon.” Titus clicks his tongue in mock offense.  
  
“Alcyone, you know I never age.”  
  
“Nor miss an opportunity to throw a party,” she counters. “You are at an impasse, my darling.” Jupiter, already scenting danger, feels it only confirmed when Balem’s eyes snap shut. His lips part as if he might attempt to extricate himself, but Kalique gets there first.  
  
“I suppose, then, I’ll have to start us off, won’t I?” She smiles, all teeth, though her elder brother doesn’t see it. “I don’t suppose any of you recall Kallantis? I’ve been dying to have an event there.”  
  
“Kallantis?” Titus echoes. “You spoil me. And you’ll join us, won’t you, brother?” Titus offers another dainty, dripping with liquid sugar. Balem looks between his siblings like some cornered thing, his face so taut Jupiter half expects it should crack in two.  
  
“I have much to attend, at present.” The objection is as likely to fly as a kite without a tail.  
  
“So much that you must miss the festivities?” Titus quirks a brow. “Tenth millennia celebrations don’t come about every day. You didn’t _forget_ did you?”  
  
“I suspect you would not allow it, Titus.” Balem replies, tight-jawed. He looks at his brother only out of the corner of his eye.  
  
“You’ll join us, then? At least to Kallantis?” Titus asks. Jupiter glances down at her plate. Looking away, however, does not prevent her from being dragged into Titus’ little performance. “Surely you would not rob _Miss Jones_ of the opportunity to see it,” he goes on. Jupiter takes a bite-sized layer cake and stuffs it immediately into her mouth. It won’t keep her out of the conversation for long, and she hopes to see Grimaldus’ long-fingered hand deposit a next, unnameable something onto her plate. He is, however, watching Balem consider, and touches nothing on the table. The First Primary of the House of Abrasax looks as if he is attempting not to swallow his tongue.  
  
“I am loath to disappoint,” he concedes at last.  
  
“Wonderful,” Kalique chimes in before Titus can remark. “It’s been quite some time since the three of us attended an event together. I have no doubt,” and here a bit of steel creeps into her voice, “that it will be lovely.”  
  
“You are not alone in your confidence,” Grimaldus agrees gently. “After all, when the House of Abrasax celebrates, all eyes look to see how it’s done.”  
  
“And they call me flatterer,” Titus quips.  
  
“We must all taste our own medicine from time to time.” There’s something unsettling in the way Grimaldus smiles, then, that almost makes Jupiter shudder. Titus only smiles back.  
  
“As pleasant as these new developments are,” Balem interjects in a tone that suggests there is nothing pleasant about it whatsoever, “I’m afraid I must make certain arrangements if I am to attend.” As though on cue, Mr. Night appears through one of the portals at a brisk walk, though he stops well short of their table. Kalique nods to Balem, who rises from the table. He offers a curt nod to Alcyone and Grimaldus, glances for just a little too long at Jupiter, and spares nothing but the sight of his retreating back for Titus.  
  
Now left at the table without Balem, Jupiter finds herself somehow even more out of place. And perhaps worse, there is no one now to keep the others’ attention away from her. She’s been satisfied to let them speak. Listening is easier than playing short-handed at Entitled politics. For a while, the conversation goes on without her. More food comes, carried by splices in glittering gowns, and Kalique chats about her alcazar on Kallantis.  
  
“There are such _fireflies_ this time of year, and the nights are quite long, and very warm,” Jupiter catches her saying. Outside, the sun is sinking, and the clouds seem lit from within. An artificial breeze stirs the great willow, and the soft rush of leaves provides a moment of respite. It’s only a matter of time, however, before Jupiter’s quiet introspection attracts notice.  
  
“You have been deathly quiet, Miss Jones,” Alcyone observes. “I hope not begun to bore you.”  
  
“Not at all!” Jupiter answers quickly. “This is all just a little more than I’m used to.”  
  
“Ah, yes – it’s not been long at all since you were discovered, has it?”  
  
“That’s mostly a matter of perspective.” Alcyone smiles, at that, sympathetic, and Jupiter struggles to mistrust it.  
  
“At the very least, I suspect you haven’t had the time to settle in. I’ve heard that more of poor Seraphi’s holdings than Earth were left to you. That must be quite a handful.” Kalique tenses, just slightly.  
  
“That’s true,” Jupiter says, serving a candied something-or-other. Whether this mollifies Kalique or not, it’s difficult to say. “There’s a hold on it for another few months, though.”  
  
“That’s interesting,” Titus mutters.  
  
“Knew you’d think so.”  
  
Alcyone raises her brows at the exchange. Her heir, meanwhile, only pours a small glass of opalescent liquid, and pushes it gingerly in Jupiter’s direction. She lifts the glass. Absurd. She swirls the stuff around, an iridescent ripple going through it.  
  
“I assure you it isn’t poison,” Grimaldus teases. “Perhaps we ought to join you?”  
  
“Sure,” she agrees. And the decanter circles the table.  
  
“A toast, then?” Titus pipes up. By now, she is certain he intends to put her on the spot. She swallows, but takes only a moment to find a suitable reply.  
  
“To the view,” she says, which wins an echoing murmur. Alcyone makes a point of drinking somewhat ahead of the others, as though to enforce that no poison is simmering away in the shimmering drink. Jupiter lifts her glass to her lips in unison with Kalique. Immediately her mouth begins to buzz with something not unlike carbonation. She forces a smile as she chokes it down. “Wow.” The word comes out a wheeze. “That’s something.” The buzzing feeling works its way down her throat and into her gut.  
  
“Velah is an acquired taste,” Alcyone explains.  
  
“You say that now.” Jupiter suppresses a shudder. She nearly asks what it is, but feeling it still buzzing away in her belly is enough information for now. Velah is awful. She shoots a look at Grimaldus out of the corner of her eye, and he has the good grace to look apologetic. The rest of the leisurely meal – if such light, sweet fare could be called that – goes with very little incident. There’s more talk of planets and alcazars, but nothing, yet, of substance. That, she suspects, will come later. No one has so much as whispered the word ‘Rhapsody.’ It isn’t much longer before aides begin to intrude upon the garden sphere. Jupiter remembers Famulus, who traverses the grass and glass in black stilettos without batting an eye. She bows before the table, approaching only when Titus beckons. She whispers something to him, and after the prescribed farewells – which go a little quick for Jupiter’s comfort – the two are gone.  
  
“It seems our numbers are dwindling,” Alcyone observes. “Perhaps we should retire? I fear it won’t be long before _our_ aides come to claim us.” The words are scarce out of her mouth when the portal at the far end of the garden sphere ignites. “You see?” Kalique sighs, then stands.  
  
“Those are for me, sadly.” She smiles at her grim, owl-faced aide as he approaches, flanked by Vesper on one side, and Axolorin on the other. Ax gives a grand flourish of their wings as they stop short of the table. “With your leave,” Kalique continues, “I’ll escort you to your rooms.”  
  
“It is about that time, alas,” Alcyone agrees. “There are always more matters to attend.” She, too, rises from the table, slipping nimbly back into her shoes. Grimaldus follows suit in almost perfect unison, leaving Jupiter to pick herself up, awkward in her gown.  
  
“And what of you, Jupiter?” Grimaldus’ steady gaze settles on her.  
  
“I thought I’d take a walk. I don’t have quite as many engagements as you do, just yet.”  
  
“Would you find it very objectionable if I joined you?” he asks. Jupiter glimpses Kalique’s look of surprise out of the corner of her eye.  
  
“I don’t mind,” she says. “I know to how to call for servitants, so we won’t get lost. As long as that’s cool.”  
  
“Cool?” Kalique echoes.  
  
“Uh. As long as that’s all right.” For the space of a breath, it seems Kalique might invent an objection. She smiles instead.  
  
“I suspect the two of you will have plenty to chat about,” she says. “I would hate to come between you.” Her smile remains perfectly manicured as she looks to Alcyone. “Shall we?”  
  
“Please, my darling, if you’ll lead the way.” Kalique gives a slight bow before joining her advisor and the others. Alcyone pauses only long enough to catch hold of Grimaldus’ hand. “Enjoy your walk, my love.” She bends, then, to kiss his cheek. “Try not to be too late.” That said, she gives a slight inclination of her head Jupiter’s way, and follows Kalique. It’s only once they’re gone that Jupiter notices her heart beginning to pound. Grimaldus is an odd mix of the familiar and uncanny, but if there is anything that Jupiter’s learned about dealing with the Entitled, it’s that running draws their attention.  
  
“So, um… You wanted to talk?”  
  
“Very much.” Grimaldus nods. “I’m afraid I don’t know the way at all. You had best lead on, I think.”  
  
“Oh! Yeah. Sorry. I haven’t done too much exploring, myself, to be honest, but I think I’ve got the gist.” Jupiter sets off in the direction opposite the portal Kalique and Alcyone left through, picking her way carefully over the grass. Behind them, the mouthless splices begin clearing the table, pale as spectres in the shadow of the looming willow. “So, you’re a Recurrence too? Bit of a wild ride, huh?” Grimaldus has a musical laugh, and unlike his smile, it shows teeth.  
  
“To say the least,” he agrees. “I was certain that I had lost my mind.” They pass together through the portal into the next sphere. Golden ivy overruns the curving walls, such that the outside is visible only through gaps, here and there, where the plant life does not yet choke it out. A wisp of cloud splits around the sphere, flickering on the other side of the walls as if it could weave its way through the climbing vines. It’s the first time Jupiter stops to stare in wonder, and her company does the same.

“You sure you haven’t?”

“Most days.” He looks up, lips parted in unvoiced awe. There are lights tangled in the vines that hang from the ceiling, casting a soft glow inside the sphere. Dusk has fallen all around them, by now, but this part of the garden seems to shine out of spite. “May I show you something?” Grimaldus asks, still looking up at the sky.  
  
“Can’t hurt.” He slips a ring off his index finger, silver and set with a rich green stone, holding it between his middle finger and thumb. When he lets it go, it does not fall, but hangs in the air, particles of light forming around it. These quickly expand, churning, beginning to take shape – a hologram, Jupiter realizes. The figure swirls gradually into being. A man, clad in the extravagant raiment of the Entitled. Jupiter’s brows furrow.  
  
“I don’t understand what –” And then she sees the face of the man in the hologram. It’s one she’s seen only in photographs. Never blinking, never breathing. Not even a memory. She knows him instantly. “That’s…” Incredible _. Impossible._ “That’s my _father_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more Balem in the next chapter [Chapter 8]. He's got more than a few irons in the fire, I promise. This fic is getting way out of hand.


	8. Fābula Astrōrum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jupiter learns about her Entitled heritage.

 Even at this substantial distance, the smell of alcohol is unmistakable. Balem, who might normally see Mr. Night penalized for such overindulgence, this evening finds it somewhat comforting. It would seem that his spymaster, too, despises Icaraxe. The rat splice’s hand-wringing is worse than usual, but behind those bleary eyes, that efficient mind of his is sizzling away. He keeps his chin raised, as though to do so will keep him from looking at the translucent floor of the spherical chamber. Even with the darkness all around them, the height is dizzying. Mr. Night stands near to the portal, with his back to it, though he dares not another step further into the room.  
  
“I can arrange to stall the Harvestmaster, my lord,” he suggests. “I have the numbers from Melastra for your perusal. The grade we’re getting from the skim is not what we hoped.”  
  
“You believe the Harvestmaster intends to request the planet.”  
  
“Yes, my lord. I also believe that it would serve our interests to…” Mr. Night purses his lips, perhaps having lost the word, “ _delay_ that request, if we have the means.” Balem steeples his fingers.  
  
“What about the holo from Revenue Review?”  
  
“It remains secure,” Mr. Night supplies. Balem’s approval is a mere nod, and he steps toward the glass wall, imagining the frigid air whipping by, but the room is warm, and the lights are soft. He is silent, a moment, taken with his reflection. A ghost, staring back. This is how he ought to look, he thinks. Translucent. A wraith. Behind him, Mr. Night shifts nervously, and the sound of fabric on fabric returns him to the matter at hand.  
  
“My sister was aware of the incident in the Hall of Titles,” Balem tells him.  
  
“Ah. Yes. My spies came late with that report. Please forgive me.”  
  
“It will not happen again.”  
  
“No, my lord. We will take the utmost care.”  
  
“For your sake, Mr. Night.” He hears it when Night suppresses a sigh. Another unusual slip, but one that he can forgive. A good spymaster is difficult to replace, and an excellent one, even more so.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Send word to the Harvestmaster that our meeting will be delayed along with skim from Melastra. Use that time to make contact with Pallas Strigna concerning our suit.”  
  
“They’ve said they will accept, when the time comes.”  
  
“Make certain, and do it quietly. Neither of my siblings must be made aware of the proceedings until they are underway.”  
  
“Shall I return to Deimos when it’s done?” A twitching, hopeful smile turns up the corners of Mr. Night’s mouth.  
  
“No.” And it vanishes. “You’ll accompany me. There is an event being held on Kallantis.”  
  
“I understand, my lord.” Balem knows before Mr. Night’s next breath that there is something more, and already senses that he will dislike it. “There is something else,” the rat splice begins, carefully. “I had a word with one of my sources here, concerning Jupiter Jones.” Balem’s fingers pull into an involuntary fist, but Night goes on. “She’s been having words with Grimaldus Orias. Privately.”  
  
“I see. And the details of this conversation?”  
  
“I’m afraid I don’t know.”  
  
“You don’t know.”  
  
“No, my lord. With the Harvest to consider, I thought –”  
  
“You _thought_.” Mr. Night, one of the few who knows better than to offer excuses, only hangs his head. Balem’s jaw tightens around a shout, and he hisses a command instead. “I want him under surveillance. I want to know his business with Jupiter Jones.” Mr. Night sucks his teeth instead of shuddering.  
  
“Lord Titus has spent some time with the House of Orias, as well, which might be worth looking into.”  
  
“See it done."  
  
“At once, my lord.”  


* * *

  
  
Very little survives of Maximilian Jones. A photograph, the occasional anecdote. But here he is, preserved as if he had been plucked out of home videos that never were. Not quite flesh and blood, but a palpable echo. Jupiter can almost reach out and touch, but doesn’t for fear that the image might vanish.  
  
“They did not tell you,” Grimaldus observes softly. “Please forgive me. I hoped you knew. I was uncertain how best to ask… I’ll explain.”  
  
“Yeah, I think you’d better.” Jupiter hardly blinks, unable to tear her eyes away from the hologram.  
  
“Your father belonged to the House of Avnas,” Grimaldus begins. “As, in fact, did I. Or, more appropriately, my Precursor did. The one from whom I Recurred. I believe you understand, by now, the threat I presented to the stability of House Avnas. Maximilian was the only one who wished for my survival. He helped make certain it was my mother who found me, and not the head of his House, who would have had me eliminated. That was how we met, many thousands of years ago.”  
  
“But how did he get to _Earth?_ ” Jupiter asks.  
  
“He fell in love with the stars.” In the instant Jupiter manages to look away from the hologram, she can see the wistful crook in Grimaldus’ smile. “I asked him why he chose that planet. And he said that from the surface it looked as if the sky was full of –”  
  
“Miracles."  
  
“Yes. Miracles… Miracles.” Grimaldus trails off, looking up at the darkening sky of Icaraxe. The light of the hologram catches on his eyes, the irises yellow as the moon in midsummer. “It must feel like a very long while since your father passed on. Time, for you, is different… To me, it seems not long ago that he departed for Earth.” Jupiter rubs at her forehead.  
  
“I don’t… Why didn’t –”  
  
“He blanked himself,” Grimaldus supplies. “Long-term memory, particularly memories like ours, is difficult to alter, but it is not impossible. And the rest, I suspect, you know. This,” he gestures to the hologram, “is one of the first messages I ever received from him. I thought, given our similar circumstances, you might wish to see it.”  
  
Jupiter manages only a mute nod, barely hearing the command that spurred the image into motion.  
  
– _Ah! There we are. I hope this finds you all right. It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? I just wanted to let you know that if you’re feeling overwhelmed, and Alcyone isn’t about – busy woman, busy, busy, woman – you are always welcome to reach out to me. I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through, and I’m not going to try. But I can listen. Pretty well, I’m told. At any rate, I’m sure you’ll be just fine. It’s going to be all right. We’ll talk soon, I hope. That’s it for now. You take care of yourself.  
  
_ It’s only after the hologram fizzles out that Jupiter notices her cheeks are wet.  
  
“Ah, shit.” She scrubs at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I just… I’ve never heard his voice before.”  
  
“It’s all right. It’s all right.” There’s a curious resonance between them as Grimaldus takes her hand. She didn’t see him retrieve the ring that had generated the hologram, but feels it in her palm, cool and resonant with memory. “I think this belongs with you,” he tells her. “Any Chamber Presence can guide you through its use.” Jupiter slips the ring on her thumb, where it still doesn’t quite fit, and lets out a long sigh of breath.  
  
“This is so fucked up…” she mutters. Grimaldus chuckles at her.  
  
“I’m afraid it only gets worse. Shall we walk?” Jupiter only nods, the ring at once cool and burning where it’s wrapped around her thumb.  
  
“Let me try to sort this out. My dad comes from this House Avnas. He was an Entitled, like you. _Before_ you. And that was how long ago?”  
  
“Something more than 90 000 years. Indeed, your Precursor had not yet seen her first use of RegenX-E.”  
  
“Unreal…” Jupiter rakes her fingers through her hair, pausing on a jewelled hair clip. “So… Wait. You know where it comes from. You know what happens when they Harvest a planet. But you’ve been using RegenX-E for thousands of years. Tens of thousands.” At this Grimaldus’ pace slows.  
  
“Yes. And it is my work to make the Harvesting process easier. Before I became a part of the House of Orias, compounds like Rhapsody were not in standard usage. The Harvests now happen in relative silence, if done to code. The indigenous species –”  
  
“You mean the people.”  
  
“Yes,” he admits, albeit with a wince, and then continues. “The people die unaware, and, for the most part, without suffering. I have worked for many lifetimes to make certain of that.” The sick feeling in her stomach is not quite the hot outrage she feels when Balem discusses the necessity of the Harvests, but it is at once somehow worse.  
  
“That isn’t better,” Jupiter objects. “No one should have to die at all.”  
  
“And yet, to ask that we stop this business is to ask that we all die.”  
  
“Everybody dies.” Grimaldus looks startled at that, but the expression passes quickly, and he smiles as though he knows something she doesn’t. It is only not infuriating, because he does.  
  
“Now you sound like Seraphi Abrasax,” he says.  
  
“Still don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”  
  
“If it’s any consolation, I have thus far seen in you only her better qualities.” Jupiter manages half a smile of her own.  
  
“I’ll take what I can get.” She remembers again that ghost woman in the glass, and almost asks, but balks at the question. To ask about it will make it real and it cannot, cannot be real. For a time, they walk in silence, Grimaldus inscrutable as all the rest of the Entitled, and Jupiter reeling.  
  
“Are you all right?” Grimaldus asks as the distance between them and the next portal begins to shrink.  
  
“You know, I’m not sure. Just when I think I might be able to make some sense of this…” She shakes her head. “When does that stop?”  
  
“Not for a long while, I’m afraid,” Grimaldus says. “I had to grow old many times before I was not overwhelmed by this world. But I had help. My mother was patient, and Maximillian was –” A sharpness comes into his breath that gives pause, as though it hurt. “He was kind. He was very kind to me. You must miss him terribly.”  
  
“In a way.” Jupiter fiddles a little with the silver torque around her neck. “I never met him. He’s just a story to me. An important one. But a story.”  
  
“I see. I am sorry he was taken from you.”  
  
“So am I.” Before more can be said, a bright chiming sound breaks the silence. “Do forgive me,” Grimaldus says, looking into his palm where luminous, and indecipherable text has ignited. “It appears my presence is required elsewhere.” He closes his hand, and the violet glow of the letters vanishes. “If you wish to speak again, please know that you are always welcome. It is my hope that you will consider me your ally.”  
  
“I could use the help.” Jupiter sighs, wanting nothing more than to lie on her back in the grass and pretend there was nothing to worry about. Exhaustion creeps into the edges of her mind, bearing its weight on the corners of her eyes, tugging at the lids. The beat of silence is taut as any quiet endured since she had struck her deal with Balem, and she cannot tell if this proposed alliance should make her hopeful or afraid. “Let me call the servitants,” she says, instead of thinking. If her suddenness confuses Grimaldus, he makes nothing of it when she marches toward the portal, to place her hand on the glass beside it. The summoning is a painless procedure, comfortably similar to the smartphones of home. It’s an easy swipe of the screen, and a quiet wait, before a mechanical servitant arrives.  
  
“This is where I leave you, then.” Grimaldus gives a deferent inclination of his head, and takes a step after the servitant.  
  
“Hey, Grimaldus?” Jupiter does not quite follow, but feels an odd pull to go after him. He turns, with a querying look that feels like a memory. “Thanks. You know. For this.” She opens her hand to look at the ring in her palm. “It means a lot to me.” Grimaldus only smiles, but it’s enough. The portal ignites, and Jupiter is alone in the garden.  


* * *

  
Evening on Icaraxe looks endless and feels restless. By now, struggling to sleep is nothing new to Jupiter, and she lies on her back, looking up at the stars. Her chamber here is more spacious than she needs, and the transparent walls make it seem even larger. Twice, she turns on the hologram, still not quite able to believe that that is her father. She scours the image for some sign of deception, something that might make this improbability an impossibility, and sees none.

_  
I’m sure you’ll be just fine. It’s going to be all right._

  
A third viewing is unbearable, and does nothing but make her homesick. At home, there were familiar diversions to keep her mind off things like these. She could forget the intergalactic hierarchy she had been inducted into. Even the glowing blue of a holoscreen is another reminder that nothing is normal, and even the things she had believed she knew were not as they seemed. She half expected some ghost to melt out of the floor to tell her that Vladie had secretly been in cahoots with some space aristocrat or other, and they’d convinced him to point her in the direction of that fertility clinic, all that time ago. Instead, there was nothing below but the frozen cadaver of a once-thriving planet, with only the radiant light of its triple moons to illuminate it. Even some of the unfamiliar things she had since acclimated to, are missing here. Tels the Chamber Presence was not ported down when they arrived, and Sendi has a colder voice, or else Jupiter fancies that it does. Aside from that glimpse after dinner, Axolorin is nowhere to be found. The pin they gave her sits on the translucent bedside table, and for a moment, she thinks about activating it just to have someone to _talk to_. She thinks of Caine long enough for it to be painful, then buries her face in the sumptuous blue pillows and groans. The space around her stretches on farther than her eye can see. Inside, she shrinks, and wonders at how she had found herself so far adrift. And the year is far from over. Where would she be, once it was done? Not alone like this, she decides, curling into herself. Even if she was lost at sea, there were always the stars. God. What would her mother think of all this?  
  
“Miracles,” she mumbles, and the tangle in her thoughts loosens a bit. “Miracles.”  


* * *

  
Morning arrives to the tune of light breakfast, mystery space-coffee, and the uninvited company of Balem Abrasax. On the bright side, it isn’t a surprise when he swoops in unannounced and in his customary black, and these days, she has the presence of mind to get dressed in a hurry.  
  
“We’re leaving,” he says at once. Jupiter sits on the bed, and doesn’t move.  
  
“That’s it?” He lifts a brow at her, folding his hands in a way that suggests she has already annoyed him.  
  
“You had other expectations?”  
  
“Maybe?”  
  
“We can discuss them on the way.” He beckons with a twitch of his fingers. When this does not yield any obedience on her part, he sucks in a breath through his nose, but says nothing.  
  
“What’s the hurry?” A part of Jupiter concedes that it is perhaps unkind to make him squirm like this. The rest of her is vindicated by his fidgeting.  
  
“Another matter that can be discussed once we leave here,” he said. Jupiter considers digging in her heels, but that satisfaction is not quite worth the tantrum it might excite.  
  
“I can see this is important to you. I’ll, uh, grab my stuff. Where’re we headed?” From the look on Balem’s face, it would not have been the least bit of a surprise if he had parted his plump lips and said, “direct to Hell.”  
  
“You know where,” he says, instead. His expression brightens when she grimaces.  
  
“It’ll be a good party, at least?” Balem scoffs at her.  
  
“It will impress you.”  
  
“That was snarky.” He stares, uncomprehending, and she doesn’t bother to explain.  
  
“You were the one who asked if we could leave.” A sly crook twists his lips. “Unless you would prefer to stay here. With Titus.” The shudder is involuntary and gives her away at once. Balem, victorious, motions to the portal. “The ship. Ten minutes. I won’t wait.” She knows he will. It isn’t much leverage, but now she has allies to consider – if Grimaldus Orias was less duplicitous than his peers. Even Kalique would see to it that, in the unlikely event that Balem abandoned her, she would not be stranded. Balem looks confident, nevertheless, lifting his chin haughtily, in what to anyone else might have seemed an imperious glance. He leaves without another word.  
  
Jupiter isn’t sure what possesses her to snatch the pin from her nightstand. She squeezes it twice, anyway, and waits. Axolorin can't possibly know that there’s a need for them to hurry, but they arrive in no time, with a chime to announce them.  
  
“Majesty! So full of turns. You summoned for me?”  
  
“Yeah, actually. It looks like Balem and I are heading out, and I wasn’t sure I’d catch you again. I wanted to say thanks, and maybe… give this back?” She holds out the pin.  
  
“Keep it, perhaps. You are still flying in the storm.”  
  
“That’s a way to put it.” Jupiter’s smile is slightly sheepish. She tucks the pin away in her pocket. It’s a relief to be wearing something with pockets again, though she can already sense that some other dress is waiting for her. “You’ll let Kalique know we’ve gone? I don’t expect Balem to tell her.” Axolorin nods their acquiescence.  
  
“If not I, then another, surely. Anything more, before you go from us?”  
  
“Can I ask a question?”  
  
“That is, itself, a question. What harm is another?”  
  
“What do you know about the House of Orias?”  
  
“Ah.” Ax looks up, thoughtful. “They are very old,” they say, at last. “And strange. Many of the Entitled owe a pleasant night to their Rhapsody. It is a sweet blade to fall on. All the Aviaganti know.” Jupiter can’t help the little sigh that leaves her, and Ax picks up on it at once. “You wish to know if you can trust them.” They don’t wait for her confirmation before they go on. “Some grow old, and grow lost. Others grow wise. Alcyone Orias is wise, for what she is, and has no quarrel with you, I think. Make none, and there will be no danger.” Axolorin’s scaly lips pull away from their teeth. “Enjoy Kallantis, Majesty. The storm, I think, will break awhile, there.” They bowed their head.  
  
“I hope so. Take care, okay?”  
  
“And you.”

* * *

  
Returning to Balem’s clipper is more comforting than Jupiter prefers to admit. After the boundless space of Icaraxe, it’s grounding to have walls around her, and opaque floors under her feet. The bronze walls hum and, if she is attentive, quiver like something just barely alive. They are knowable, if not familiar. Within reach, in some new way. But what as there to know that could not be pulled inside out in an instant? The more she learned, the less sense the larger picture made, as if she was standing too close in her attempt to see. What would her family make of this? Or Caine, whose silence she still feels. Adrift. The word comes painfully into her mind, as it becomes somehow more apparent that even here, she is suspended in space, and slipping. Still, her quarters, such as they are, have the comfort of the recognizable.  
  
“Tels?”  
  
– _Welcome back, Jupe!  
  
_ “Listen, Tels. I’ve got a question.”  
  
– _I hope I can help_.  
  
“How many solar days has it been since I first boarded this ship?”  
  
– _17 solar days.  
  
_ “Sorry?”  
  
– _17 solar days.  
  
_ “17?”  
  
– _Two weeks. Three days. Have I said something wrong?  
  
_ “No. I’m… ah… I want a notice every 24 hours – solar hours – from now on, okay? Please.” Jupiter sits on the bed, not certain that she trusts her knees. Tels’ chirruped assent is barely audible. She had lost time. Wheedled away in the slightly longer hours of Deimos, or Icaraxe. Why hadn’t she been marking the days from the first? Why had she thought for an instant that the days would pass the same as they always did? Jupiter holds her head in her hands, struggling to fend off the panic, space and time expanding viciously around her, only to contract again, dissipating like smoke. It’s too much. Everything she’s learned fills her up until it feels her lungs might burst with the scream she is so desperate to suppress. Her father’s ghostly image, the spectre of Seraphi Abrasax, the effortless slipping away of the hours, the hundreds of spent lives writhing under her regenerated skin… Jupiter’s breath comes in painful shudders and a thought that only half belongs to her crosses into her mind. _You’ve all the time in the world, my dear. Don’t you see?  
  
_ “I don’t want to,” she chokes out, once, and then again. “I don’t want to.”  
  
And it’s like this, trembling and with her fingers balled in her hair, that Balem finds her. She hears the door, and knows that it must be him. In the tense silence, she can hear him breathe. He should not sound like a living thing. His body should produce only the sounds of mechanisms, should hum, should whir.   
  
“Jupiter.”  
  
“I don’t want to.” Still without looking up, she can tell when he takes a step toward her. “I never should have come here. Why won’t you just leave me alone?” He doesn’t answer. In the silence, Jupiter steels herself. “I’m never going to give you what you want.” She lifts her head in time to see the colour rising in his cheeks, as her words begin to simmer in his blood. Another too-human breath rises and falls in Balem’s chest.  
  
“What do you know of what I want?” He dares another step closer, and another when she does not protest. Something within her that refuses to be made to feel small, pulls her to her feet. Balem looks down at her anyway. He cocks his head to the side, blinking one eye and then the other, as though unable to close his eyes on her for even an instant. “You are afraid,” he observes.  
  
“Wouldn’t you be?” It takes only a moment for her to realize that before her stands a creature that has not known a true threat to itself for millennia, and if he remembers fear – and she has seen it, his fear – he has already begun to forget it. He lets the question go unanswered, instead offering a hand.  
  
“Come with me.”  
  
Somehow Jupiter knows he is holding his breath. Her fingers curl into her palm instinctively, and Balem says something she has only heard from him once before.  
  
“ _Please_.”  
  
She puts her hand in his.


	9. A Liquid Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jupiter and Balem visit the clipper’s holodeck. Balem has questions about her meeting with Grimaldus Orias. Mistakes are made.

This is not what Balem was expecting. Her hand fits in his as naturally as if it was by design. This, he had known long before she was even born. And now she knew it, too. It is this, which comes as a surprise. She almost recognizes him when she looks at him this time. A spark has reignited itself, though she has fought all this while to smother it, keep it from him. Some small shred of her knows him, still. He strokes his thumb along her knuckles. Her catch of breath makes him fear she might choose this moment to recoil, but her grip does not slacken. He kisses her hand.  
  
“Stop,” she mutters. And the moment withers between them. When he releases her, he can nearly feel the residue. The last flickers of an ancient thing, rekindling.  
  
“This way.” To turn his back on her is not a new agony. The pull toward her is inevitable. He has to move briskly to escape her gravity. They walk in reverent silence, or at least, he does. She has never been entirely knowable to him. It had always been for his mother to lay him bare, while he is left to claw his way inside. She does not ask him where they’re going. He does not glance back as if to do so might drive her away. The halls of the clipper are empty. This wing belongs to him, and him alone. The mechanical guts of the ship were all far below, and so, too, those tasked with keeping them in order. No one will disturb them here.  
  
The holochamber awaits them behind a pair of tinted glass doors, which slide aside, to admit them. Jupiter breaks the silence, then, perhaps seeing that the room is dark. Afraid, still.  
  
“What is this, Balem?” she asks into the dim. He answers by commanding the machine.  
  
“On,” he orders, and artificial sunlight floods the room. A sunrise, sweeping over the vast chamber in swaths of red and gold. Jupiter passes the threshold, and the doors slide closed behind them, then vanish.  
  
– _Welcome, Lord Balem.  
  
_ “I don’t understand.” Jupiter turns, looking at the empty space where the doors once were. “The ship… Weren’t we…?”  
  
“This is a holochamber,” he explains.  
  
“So… More Star Trek. Sure.” Balem can’t pretend to understand what she means by that, and doesn’t. Jupiter is perceptive enough to notice, and too fascinated by their surrounds to remark on it. She spins in a slow circle, unable to believe the endless space all around them. The illusion of eternal sunrise is not a horror, but a delight, and she is greedy to partake of it. Little by little, he can see the hunger growing inside her, and wonders just how long it will be before she crumbles and dives again beneath the surface to ReCode. “Do you know you do that?” she asks, and he blinks, almost startled. “You’re staring.”  
  
“Interface on,” he says, speaking to the machinery around them, in lieu of answering her. She must know what makes him look at her for longer than he ought. The command summons a glowing console, marked with letters Jupiter is able to read only with the help of the seal on her wrist. It’s likely she doesn’t fully realize it’s translating, or that there are tiny nanomachines in her blood, implanted there the moment she stole away his birthright. Balem strokes at the hovering keys, the input signalled by faint, haptic feedback, leaving his fingertips tingling. _Melastra._ _Dusk. Winterflies._ And the sunrise dissolves around them.  
  
When the ground evaporates under them, Jupiter stifles a cry. She chuckle a little, when she realizes they aren’t falling. He hears the curse word under her breath that shatters the familiarity of her laughter. Around them, the chamber is golden, is swirling, and soon it is a place he knows. A place his mother knew. Melastra’s aurous trees spring up, encrusted with silvery snow. The bees that swarm there in the summertime, sleep, or have perished in the cold that neither he nor Jupiter can feel. Instead, the sky is full of migrant butterflies, not unlike those on earth, but that thrive in these low temperatures, and flit through the air on frosted wings. They are standing on a facsimile of the balcony of what was once his mother’s alcazar. They had come here, once, when Kalique was still an embryo, and again, after Titus was born. He can almost feel her beating heart underneath his hand as he looks to Jupiter.  
  
“They’re beautiful,” she whispers. “Is this… This can’t be a real place.”  
  
“Would you like to see it?” he asks. The alcazar is still standing, converted now to a refinery, since the planet was seeded. This place, however, has gone untouched, hidden. Jupiter looks up into the artificial sky, lips just barely parted.  
  
“When?” she asks. “I mean…” Her brows knit. “Why did you show me this?” She turns, and the spell is broken. She is all suspicion and hesitance and…  
  
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” he tells her without thinking. Jupiter makes a sound that is almost a scoff.  
  
“Somehow I’ve got doubts about that.”  
  
“Has it served me to frighten you?” he asks. Considering this, Jupiter’s shoulders relax, just slightly.  
  
“I don’t think you do things just because they serve you,” she says. “I still don’t see how any of this arrangement benefits you. And when we were alone at that shrine? I can’t imagine that was good for you.” She sees at once how that smarts, and grimaces before he does. “Sorry. We never talked that one out.”  
  
“Was there something worth ‘talking out?’” Her easy parlances settle uneven and strange on his tongue. It doesn’t feel as if it brings them any closer.  
  
“Trying to understand, remember? You said something about others… So many ‘others.’” Balem barely remembers saying it. He had gone to another time, desperate to find her there. Even if he had only thought it – and he had been half-convinced he had – he is certain now that she might have heard it anyway. He can see them. Sylphs and shades and shadows. Failures. The dead remains that he had crawled out of so long ago.  
  
“Off!” he rasps, and the frozen winterflies are gone, the golden dusk stripped from the walls. They are alone in a barren room, dim, and shrinking by the second. “I will not be interrogated. I have questions of my own.”  
  
“Balem –”  
  
“You mean to collude with House Orias.”  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  
“I know you met with Grimaldus.”  
  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m gonna need you to slow down _right_ now.” Jupiter is already backing towards the doors. She will yield where his mother would not have. “It’s not like that,” she says, clenching and unclenching her fingers. “Listen to me. I didn’t come here to play games.”  
  
“What did you discuss?” When he advances on her, she does not cower, does not raise her hands, but he can see the tension in her jaw. The sudden will to defy.  
  
“That’s none of your _goddamn_ business.” The harsh edge that comes into her voice is one that he has heard before. Tainted, here, with a nameless imperfection that made him want to reach inside, pull it apart. He snatches at the front of her clothes, but she takes a nimble step back, leaving him to grasp at the air. “I do _not_ want to fight with you. I don’t have some master plan. I’m not trying to screw you over. I’m trying to _deal_ with you. That’s all.” He shoulders past her, then, toward the door. Not another word. He’ll not hear another word. “ _Hey!_ ” Jupiter’s hand fastens around his wrist like a manacle. “You don’t get to walk away from me.”  
  
He has heard that, before, and to hear it again stops him dead. His pulse hammers against his gorget, reminding him of a time without it. He turns on her, abruptly, snatching her chin in his hand. The pale reflection of those old centuries is in her eyes, bright as a star. _There you are_. _I’ve found you_. He can hear her breathing as she stands still and silent but not at all afraid. He dares closer. Her grip tightens on his wrist. And the distance closes before he realizes. He presses his lips to hers. The kiss doesn’t taste like he remembers, because he’s stolen it. Her entire body goes taut as a coil of steel. Then she sets her teeth to him until their mouths feel full of red. She scrabbles against his chest, shoves him back.  
  
“What the _fuck_ , Balem!” Jupiter wipes her lips with the back of her hand, and he almost expects her to spit. “Why would you –? You know what? Forget it.” The doors hiss open, and she leaves him with bitterness on his tongue, and a metallic cry on his lips.  
  
“Come back!”  


* * *

  
What the fuck. What the _fuck_. For the first few steps, that’s all Jupiter can think. The awful warmth of Balem’s mouth lingers on her lips like a seal pressed into wax. She can’t stop glancing over her shoulder, for fear that he might give chase, but there is no sign of her… Her host? Her captor? Jupiter has never been entirely certain what she is, here, or what she is to Balem. The way to her room, her cell, is twisting, and seems to change each time she returns there. This time is no different, and even though she isn’t completely lost, she feels that way. She is in the middle of checking over her shoulder again, when she runs headlong into Mr. Night. It seems only natural, somehow, that it should be him, being one of the only other occupants of the clipper known to her (possibly the only other occupant she is permitted to see).  
  
“We really must stop meeting this way, Miss Jones,” he says as he recovers himself. After a moment of closer inspection, Night cocks his head. “Something’s happened,” he observes. Clinical, almost, save for the slight underpinnings of dread that make the tremulous corners of his mouth twitch to keep from drooping.  
  
“Yeah,” Jupiter confirms. Then, sharply. “I don’t wanna get into it.”  
  
“I’ve no intention of asking. Perhaps I could see you to your quarters, instead?” Jupiter’s shoulders slump, but she nods, defeated.  
  
“Sure. Great,” she sighs. Rather than set off at once, Mr. Night reaches into the interior pocket of his long coat, retrieving a silver flask.  
  
“I understand this might be quite irregular on my part, but…” He lets it dangle, glinting between them. “Drink?”  
  
“I’m good.” Jupiter hesitates. It’s the inscription that gets to her. _Everything in moderation_. “Actually…” And she plucks the flask out of Mr. Night’s chalky fingers. “What’re we drinking today?” she asks, as she unscrews the lid. Then a grimace. “Not Velah, is it?”  
  
“Goodness, no. A drop of Velah is worth more than my monthly stipend. It’s called Pax’s Breath. It’s quite popular on Orus.”  
  
“And you just keep this with you, huh?” Jupiter crooks a brow at him, and he fidgets, rubbing circles into his palms.  
  
“I, ah… Like to be prepared,” he says with a sheepish chuckle that still manages to sound more like a sigh. He watches with a peculiar interest as she rolls the cap between her index finger and thumb. “It’s a little –” Night begins to warn her as she tips back the flask. The drink tastes of slightly unripe persimmons and vanilla, and while it’s smooth enough that she doesn’t cough, she’s not certain whether she enjoyed it or not. It burns when it hits the pit of her belly, softening quickly into a pleasant warmth which makes up for the bewildering flavour.  
  
“Tastes like I feel,” she mutters, which Night seems to appreciate. She takes another swig, though it makes her slightly guilty when she sees Mr. Night feebly reach out in a bid to have his flask returned.  
  
“Ah…” The sound that comes out of him is mostly involuntary, and certainly a little pitiful.  
  
“My bad.” Jupiter returns the flask and lid. Mr. Night pauses, just for a moment, then takes a swallow himself before screwing the lid back on. It vanishes back into his pocket so quickly that it almost looks like a bit of sleight of hand.  
  
“Shall we, Miss Jones?” He offers a watery smile, which Jupiter half-heartedly returns. It’s quiet, after that, but not wholly uncomfortable. She still can’t keep from looking behind her, expecting Balem to come storming down the hallway, a tangle of black and gold. She imagines him with a pipe in his hand, and shudders.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Night?” Whatever Night is thinking of, she has to say his name a second time to snap him out of it. He gives her a querying look, but says nothing.  
  
“How do you…” Her brows scrunch. “How do you stand it?”  
  
“I’m afraid I’m unclear on just what you mean.”  
  
“Working with Balem. Doing what you do. How do you stand it?”  
  
“Miss Jones, I believe you are already aware of how I stand it.” He pats his breast pocket. “Though I will admit, it helps to know that there are still worse things.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yes,” says Mr. Night gravely. “Very sure. I’m afraid you don’t know what rat splices are typically bred for, do you?” Jupiter shakes her head. “It’s not terribly pleasant.” His tongue darts out, smoothing over his lips. Something not unlike panic makes his expression turn almost masklike, but it passes as they arrive at Jupiter’s quarters. “And this is where I leave you. I’m needed, ah…. Needed elsewhere. Your chamber presence will see to it that you are well attended. Please excuse me, Miss Jones.” With a curt bow, and another of those watery smiles (though this one did not quite make it to his eyes), Mr. Night turns stiffly on his heel and leaves her. The unbalanced tang of Pax’s Breath still on her tongue, she stumps into her room, and flops uselessly on the bed, mumbling for Tels.  
  
“Hey, Tels?”  
  
– _Yes, Jupe?_ The Chamber Presence’s voice is so bright Jupiter almost feels the need to close her eyes against it.  
  
“Where can I get more Pax’s Breath?”  
  
– _There is a store of it onboard. Shall I summon a servitant to bring some?  
  
_ “That’d be _great_.”  


* * *

  
By the time they arrive in Kallantis’ orbit, Jupiter is dressed for the occasion, and drunk as a skunk. She had never had much of a tolerance, and not even half the bottle of Pax’s Breath had been more than enough. Tels has been sensible enough to make certain her shoes have a low heel. Her dress is black as starless space, hanging loosely around her body, soft as sin, and the glitter on her skin is Abrasax gold. She doesn’t remember the entirety of having her hair done. It’s Mr. Night who comes to check on her, and he knows in a glance what she’s done.  
  
“Drink?” she warbles as the doors hiss open. Night puts a hand over his mouth as if to push the little scream that leaves him back in.  
  
“Oh, Miss Jones,” he mutters. “Let me see that bottle, will you?”  
  
“Uh-huh.” She swipes it off the bedside table and holds it out. It nearly slips from her fingers, but Mr. Night is surprisingly agile, and snatches it from her first. “Do you know,” Jupiter drawls, “that your nose twitches like a little mouse?” Mr. Night’s hands twist around the neck of the bottle.  
  
“I’ll return shortly,” he says. True to his word, he isn’t gone long (though if he had been, it wouldn’t have mattered to Jupiter, just then). He returns twice as pale, and without the bottle of Pax’s Breath.  
  
“Miss Jones?” Jupiter’s head lolls when she turns to look his way.  
  
“Yeah?” Then a frown. “You look sad. Why do you look so sad?”  
  
“You’ve had a lot to drink,” he points out.  
  
“Is that not done? Is… Is pre-drinking not a thing, here in outer-space-land?” Jupiter raises her eyebrows, black and gold glittering on her eyelids. She barks out a laugh. “Guess I couldn’t stand it, you know? I don’t wanna be here, anymore. And since I can’t just _leave_ …” She gestures at herself, and does a little turn. “Ta da. I’m ready to handle it.” Mr. Night stares on in wordless horror, but Jupiter can’t find it in herself to feel sorry. That’s buried under the drink, and the terrible fear that it will eventually wear off. “Where’s Balem?” she asks. “Aren’t you taking me to him?”  
  
“I –”  
  
“Well, let’s go!” Jupiter exclaims. When she’s met with a blank, but plainly unwilling stare, she puts her hands on her hips. “You’re supposed to listen to me, aren’t you? I’m _Entitled_ , after all.” She wiggles her fingers. Under his breath, Mr. Night murmurs something that sounds suspiciously like, ‘I’m going to be sick,’ but offers her his arm.  
  
“I don’t think this is a very good idea.”  
  
“I’m not gonna get you in trouble. Nobody has to know you got me started.” She slaps Mr. Night on the back, and he flinches. “We’ll pin it on Tels, won’t we?”  
  
“Yes, I suppose we will,” Mr. Night agrees through gritted teeth. The walk to meet Balem is a blur, and Jupiter spends most of it focused on her shoes, peeping in and out of her dress like the pointed heads of shimmering blackbirds. The observation deck looks foreign, though she’s been there before, and Balem is waiting for them, looking out over a planet she dimly suspects must be Kallantis. It has the usual number of moons, and this Jupiter finds almost disappointing. It passes quickly.  
  
“Guess who?” Jupiter hums, slipping away from Mr. Night. Balem manages half a turn, but looks unsurprised at her condition. Night begins to make his apologies.  
  
“My lord, forgive me, I –”  
  
“ _Leave us._ ” Balem dismisses his aide with a snarl.  
  
“At once.” Mr. Night more cowers than bows, but departs so quickly he might as well have evaporated. And just like that, they are alone again.  
  
“ _Mean_ ,” Jupiter teases. She starts towards him, then passes, to get a closer look out the window. “I don’t know why I’m here,” she says. “I don’t want to see you.”  
  
“What do you want?” Balem asks.  
  
“Another drink.” Jupiter laughs, and for a little while, she finds herself unable to _stop_ laughing. Balem bears this silently, but stares. Finally recovering herself, Jupiter stands a little straighter, and sighs. “God, don’t let me sober up.”  
  
“You hate it here that much?”  
  
“You want to turn everyone I love into juice,” Jupiter points out at once. “Kinda puts a damper on things. And you get weirder every time I get near you, so, uh, yeah. This is the worst.” Balem parts his lips to speak, but she interrupts. “The _worst_. And now we’re going to this,” here she gestures out the window, fingers slack and heavy with drink, “this _thing_ , and fucking Titus will be there. Great. I’m really excited.” It’s Balem’s turn to laugh, though his laughter manifests itself as little more than a huff of breath. Jupiter scowls.  
  
“ _What?_ ”  
  
“Nothing,” Balem says, lips twitching as though unaccustomed to a smile that isn’t wholly mechanized. Practiced, and difficult. Jupiter cocks her head at him, but says nothing of it, rolling her shoulders instead.  
  
“So! When do we land?”


	10. Even Deeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The intergalatic nobility congregates. The siblings Abrasax are reunited. Some cross words are exchanged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep! Still here. My thanks to everyone who's still waiting on this. ♥ Next chapter is about halfway finished, maybe a little more. Should be on its way soon. (For real, this time).

The flagships and entourages of other Entitled Houses drift in graceful silence in Kallantis’ orbit, like so many glimmering insects. This is not all there are, of course, for not all have favour enough to merit an invitation to an event hosted by the House of Abrasax. Only those with enough to offer may trespass here, whether they know it or not. Some will decline the invitation, and more, surely, will arrive later. Chicanery Night can identify nearly all of them by sight – a difficult feat, as there are 72 great Houses alone – or by the particular signatures that allow their ship to detect them.  
  
He remembers, once, at one such gathering, how the flagship of House Glasya had collided with House Labolas, and begun a feud between the survivors that had lasted for three hundred years, costing millions of lives. He remembers how it ended, too. With both families extinguished, after centuries of decadent eternity. Planets scorched black, corpses fed to fat red stars. Some of the dead, no doubt, are drifting, still, to the outer reaches of the ‘verse. Wasteful, really. Even so, Night cannot feel as if he has outlived those immortal dead, for their lives had stretched on for millennia before the feuding wiped them out. His paltry centuries paled in comparison, and could come to a close very soon. Until he is called to it, however, there is work to be done. It had been impossible to acquire a guest list, which makes their time in orbit crucial with regard to knowing just who was already crawling on the planet’s face.  
  
House Clavica is here, which means that no doubt their spies are, too. Infiltrators and smugglers, the lot. New money, not yet grounded enough to exude the calm confidence of the older Houses. Grim House Valefar has come on their heels – known for excellent re-seeding facilities, but burdened by outdated refineries. Flies, the both of them, here to buzz around the ears of their betters. House Eligos’ flamelike vessel gives their arrival away at once, here, no doubt at Titus’ personal request. House Marchosias, whose matriarch wears scars like jewellery, arrives in a ship that cuts through the darkness like a knife. Mr. Night remembers a glimpse of Kalique tracing the scarification on Erato Marchosias’ cheek with the tips of her fingers. House Berith has come, likely because Titus still owes them a debt, headed by a man with unsettling silver eyes, and a laugh that crackles like lightning. And, of course, House Orias, who by their nature alone makes the nearly all of the other Houses seem as children. An interesting mix, to be sure…  
  
Mr. Night rakes his fingers through his hair, feeling as if it might be getting thinner by the moment. There’s no telling what they ought to expect from a gathering like this. His instinct tells him chaos. Utter chaos. Months of it. Suddenly the thought that Balem might have him skinned and dumped into a grav-trough is almost a hopeful thing.  
  
“I may be getting too old for this,” Night murmurs to no one, pinging Balem with the briefing. A quick summation of the who’s who, so far, to prepare his employer’s ghastly palate. There can be no more surprises. Not tonight, when errors have already been made, and their situation is already so delicate. Mr. Night catches himself wishing an apocalyptic hangover on Jupiter Jones, and then un-wishing it. After all, it was his coping mechanism that had inspired her attempt to drown herself in Pax’s Breath. Worse, he had made the mistake of letting her taste it in the first place. His hands are shaking by the time he’s supposed to dress for this occasion. After a long, long swallow from his flask, they shake less, but the fastenings of his brocade frock coat become slightly more of a challenge. He manages, even finding a moment to pull his hair into two fishtail braids, bound together with a length of worn ribbon. An old tatter, but one of the few objects of any personal value that he dares carry. Then it’s off to the servants’ shuttle, and down, down, down.  
  
If he has visited Kallantis before, Mr. Night no longer remembers. Planets whirl by, blur together, in time. There was only one sun, which meant it wasn’t the one with the perpetual sunsets, and it seemed unlikely that it was the planet where molten metal fell out of the sky from time to time. He feels it in his bones that this is one of those watery planets, where from all directions it is possible to see where the sky knits with the horizon. It beat the snuff out of Icaraxe, at any rate. The shuttle down is not Sargorn-manned, but helmed instead by a hawk-eyed splice, who smiles a little too hungrily at the sight of him. Mr. Night frowns.  
  
“All’s well, I hope, Mr…”  
  
“Mr. Klatha,” she says.  
  
“Mr. Klatha,” he echoes, scouring his brain for the memory of a time when he had met her. Having seen her quiets some of the alarm bells that had begun to sound, but it does not keep his stomach from roiling. He isn’t certain what he wishes on Mr. Axolorin for their defection, but it is something rather worse than a hangover. And for a brief, painful moment, he misses Greeghan desperately.  
  
They are joined by Mr. Lachesis, who Night does recognize, and trusts at least passingly well, which assuages some of his discomfort. Lacheis has scales the colour of old jade, and prefers to communicate in huffs of breath where possible. Mr. Night adjusts his lapel pin, just in case, which can produce a sudden flash, enough to blind Mr. Klatha, should this irregularity prove something more than a failure on the part of his memory. After the stockworks, there had been a need for a substantial new hire. It is nearly impossible to know them all by name. Mr. Night closes his eyes, but only briefly. When had he slept last? Or eaten? It hardly matters, in the end. There are chemical solutions to exhaustion and hunger, and he cannot stop to rest.  
  
The aides will meet on the surface, and then, of course, the procession. There are always processions where the Entitled gather. If there is any occasion for the great old Houses to show their wealth, their glorious eternal beauty, this is one. They will parade themselves, parade their underlings… On such short notice, Balem’s retainers are certain to look austere compared to the other companies. Already Mr. Night can imagine the bird-headed Aviaganti in their glittering armour. Titus’ menagerie, dancing, while Kalique’s handmaidens sing. Night, himself, will have to walk ahead of a small troop of Sargorns, and hawk-eyed splices like Mr. Klatha. Which might, he realizes, be the last time anyone ever sees him. Balem Abrasax does not tolerate carelessness, and Jupiter Jones’ shattered sobriety is absolutely the result of carelessness. A sigh from Mr. Lacheis reminds him to breathe while he can.  
  
Their little shuttle descends like a dart through the atmosphere, cutting through purpling clouds, and Kallantis rushes into view. For a little while, there is nothing but water, and Mr. Night curses himself for being right. Here and there, he can see the glimmer of other shuttles, no doubt laden with other poor sods like him, fluttering down ahead of their eternal masters. Soaring over the amethystine dusk, the first glimpse of the sprawling alcazar is still rather breathtaking. It sits serene atop the dark water, light as cobwebs, while the dark water stirs restless, and fathoms deep. The sky is full of swarming fireflies, flickering in and out of existence. Mr. Night thinks of them splattering against their shielding, or burning up, and some of the magic rots away from the sight. Beside him, Lacheis bites back another long exhalation of breath, wings fidgeting in the cramped cabin.  
  
“Troubled, Mr. Lacheis?” Night asks mildly. The Sargorn’s lips pull away from his teeth.  
  
“You’re one to ask,” he answers. “I dislike these…” He stirs the air with thick, clawed fingers. Then they seize on the word. “Events.” Mr. Night lets out a breathy chuckle.  
  
“I assure you there are worse things.”  
  
“Cheerful talk!” cries Klatha. “Let’s hope whatever’s worse than this, it’s not down there, hah?”     
  
“Indeed.” Mr. Night pinches the bridge of his nose, and the shuttle makes its winding way down to the Kallantis alcazar. Mr. Atropo, he knows, awaits them on the ground. Hopefully, with useful intel weaselled away from the other Houses. Atropo has been with House Eligos for some months, now, since Titus has such _intimate_ ties. Intimate, and occasionally, financial. Always useful to keep an eye on where the credits were headed… Mr. Night holds his breath, and wishes for just a shred of good news, feeling very keenly that one more bad report might mean a sudden and painful end.  
  
Although, he muses, a death on the processing table might not be the worst thing that could happen.  
  


* * *

 

Jupiter’s head is still swimming as they disembark from the clipper. She isn’t certain exactly when she was told there was to be a sort of… Parade? Procession? But she knows there are eyes on her as she totters off the clipper with Balem.  
  
“Look at all this water,” she mumbles, hanging off Balem’s arm, numb to the roots of her teeth. All around them, the sea ripples and glints, and the churning unsettles her stomach if she looks at it for very long. Each arriving party has settled on a hub like this one, each hub attached to a bridge that leads to a central edifice that as much resembles a colossal tree as it does work of architecture. Fireflies glimmer in its quartz-like branches, and even under the surface of the water nearest the base of the structure. Jupiter can feel the haze beginning to lift, and squeezes her eyes shut as if that might prolong the effect. She opens her eyes to the sight of a small figure walking briskly across the bridge, to join them. Even before she can quite make out his face, she knows by his chalky pallor, and his hand wringing, that it is Mr. Night, come to join them. He bows deeply.  
  
“We will be first, my lord, to proceed,” he says. He does not look at Jupiter. “Our hosts have said we may do so at our leisure.” If Balem answers him, Jupiter misses it in the sound of murmuring waves. In the distance, she can see dazzling figures standing patiently still, silver and black and nearly aglow. Balem’s cool fingers settle in the crook of her elbow and she flinches.  
  
“We should move,” he says.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Followed by a host of Sargorns and a complement of mechanical guards, they begin to cross the bridge. Jupiter can’t guess how wide it is, but it accommodates their number without her fearing that she might trip into the water. She barely notices that Balem still has his hand on her arm until she glances down, but as it’s oddly steadying, she allows it. Her vision is still swimming a little, and the distance between them and the crystal tree seems horrifyingly endless. But it ends, at last, at the foot of a jagged pedestal, in the vast hollow of the tree.  
  
Kalique waits for them, there, her smile a little tauter than Jupiter remembers. She’s sickeningly lovely in a gown that looks cut out of shards of smoky quartz. Titus, beside her, is dressed to match, handsome as a marble figure.  
  
“What an asshole,” she mumbles. Balem glances over at her, as if considering something. Then he smiles, looks away.  
  
“You are not mistaken,” he says.  
  
“The one thing we agree on.”  
  
“Apparently.”  
  
Behind them, the Sargorn host stops short, and bows. It’s Balem’s hand, now migrated to the small of her back, which keeps Jupiter moving the little distance nearer. She still nearly stumbles when he stops at the foot of the pedestal. Kalique and Titus bow to them. Balem does nothing of the sort.  
  
“You honour us with your presence, brother. Miss Jones.” Titus smiles, not innocently, but feigning it as if it were second nature. Jupiter pulls a face.  
  
“I’ll honour you with _something_ ,” she mumbles. Kalique fidgets with her jewellery.  
  
“I hope you’ll join us in welcoming the others,” she says, “and then we’ll all descend together.” Jupiter, not unversed, by now, in confusion, nevertheless finds herself frowning. Descend where? She looks at her feet. No translucent floor. The question, she keeps behind her teeth, half forgetting the desire to know, and half-distracted by the approach of another group of shimmering Entitled. These, mercifully familiar. She recognizes the entourage of Aviaganti at once, armoured and marching in perfect unison. Titus speaks from the pedestal, with open arms, as if he might embrace them even from this distance.     
  
“The House of Abrasax welcomes House Orias,” he says, and the room is full of his voice. It diminishes when Alcyone answers him, clad head to foot in dazzling silver. She looks as if a thousand polished mirrors have shattered around her, and Jupiter can’t look for long.  
  
“Then the House of Orias must be grateful.”  
  
“I see you are without your heir,” Titus observes.  
  
“A small House matter has called him away, for a time,” explains Alcyone, “but we’ll not be long without him. He sends his greetings, and apologies.”  
  
“All’s forgiven. We’ve all been called away by matters of House.” Titus is effortlessly gracious, and it makes Jupiter want to spit. She’s distracted, however, when Balem’s hand leaves the small of her back. He steeples his fingers. Jupiter hadn’t quite noticed Grimaldus’ absence, but feels a sudden and peculiar relief that he isn’t about to see her trashed. Unless, perhaps, this party has an open bar.  
  
As the next group arrives, Balem’s cool fingers find Jupiter’s elbow. He mutters the names of the approaching Entitled into her ear.  
  
“Arist and Isatia Berith.” Jupiter bites the inside of her lip to keep from asking if he expects her to remember. After a closer look at House Berith, however, it becomes apparent that forgetting them would be as difficult as forgetting any of the Entitled she had met so far. They arrive in the company of what Jupiter can only think of as giants. Faceless, and carrying massive lanterns, they move without a sound. For all their size, and their hooded visages, they remain somehow less intimidating than the pair they follow. Arist Berith stands nearly as tall as a Sargorn, and has eyes that burn like starlight. When he catches her eye, Jupiter feels the sudden urge to duck under Balem’s glimmering silks for safety. His attention shifts to his consort, who seems to experience no such discomfort, and smiles easily up at him. Her hair is redder than a sunrise, and her skin is the colour of earth. A breathless sound leaves Jupiter at the sight of her, and only the sharp sound of Arist Berith’s voice snaps her out of it.  
  
“House Berith thanks the House of Abrasax for this most gracious invitation.”  
  
“And the House of Abrasax bids you welcome.”  
  
“I should dearly hope so, when we are come so far from home!”  
  
Isatia Berith shakes her head at her consort, who only laughs. Jupiter catches Kalique hiding a smile behind her hand, and a glimpse of Alcyone Orias’ radiant grin. And another Entitled House approaches. Jupiter remains in a state of motionless awe from that moment on, as if she is peering into a kaleidoscope designed to show her iteration after iteration of the most beautiful person she has ever seen. The while, Balem whispers their names into her ear, as if to give her power over them.  
  
Erato Marchosias comes in the company of snake-men, their chests dappled with scales. She looks Kalique up and down in front of the entire gathering, and Kalique stammers the next time she tries to speak. Menes and Vitus Eligos are twins, and Balem murmurs that Titus has had ‘dealings’ with the both of them. Jupiter curses herself for imagining it. Prisca Clavica comes with her First Primary, Larkin, and a guard of peculiar entities that look like they are made of mist, so tightly wrapped in gauze that they began to take on a human silhouette. A man called Ilaus Suali speaks for them in a painful rasp, and holds his throat once the exchange is done. Jupiter looks to Balem, but sees no sympathy in his expression. She sees no satisfaction, either. Cynesige Valefar is last, and alone, save for a creature that looks like a white tree given life. It bends to shade him, when they stand before the pedestal. For a moment, he steps out from the shadow cast by his escort, and Jupiter sees that his expression is one of perpetual heartbreak.  
  
Assembled, the Entitled are overwhelming to look at, and there seems scarcely to be a moment when one pair of immortal eyes, or another, is not on her. Erato looks at her like she’s considering what wine to pair her with. Isatia Berith only looks disappointed. Alcyone nods Jupiter’s way, once, and while it is encouraging, it reminds her of her increasing sobriety. It is a welcome train of thought to pursue, however, given that the other is that all of these ancient eyes are seeing Seraphi Abrasax, or trying to, when they set their gazes on her.  
  
“Well,” Titus begins, “that was exhausting. Shall we?” There’s a laugh, and a murmur of assent, whereupon Titus claps his hands together, and the platform under them begins to produce a soft humming sound, slowly starting to rotate. Jupiter almost loses her footing, and catches herself leaning on Balem, again.  
  
“Shit!” Then, under her breath. “Hope no one heard that.” Balem looks down at her.  
  
“I suspect not,” he says, and she knows he’s lying.  
  
“All this helping hand bullshit isn’t going to change anything, by the way.” That earns her a sharp look, but no answer as the platform and its glittering cargo descend into the deep. Through the glass walls, there is water on all sides, and swarms of aurous fireflies, which ignite even in these depths. There are murmurs amongst the Entitled and their entourages, but it all melts together, unintelligible. “This is unreal,” Jupiter mumbles, too fixated on the undersea spectacle all around them to notice Titus and Kalique descending from their pedestal. She fails to notice, too, when Kalique splits from her brother to have words with Erato Marchosias, leaving Titus to his own devices.  
  
“Miss Jones.” The wonder of their surrounds evaporates the moment he speaks.  
  
“I don’t fucking think so,” Jupiter snaps at once.  
  
“I believe you’ve been dismissed,” Balem adds as Titus opens his mouth to speak.  
  
“Hey, I’m not taking sides,” Jupiter protests. “You’re both garbage.” Titus looks genuinely surprised for all of a matter of seconds, before he begins to laugh.  
  
“Now this, _this_ is something. You’d think it was my birthday. We’ll talk later, I think. Miss Jones. Brother.” He lifts a hand and strokes Balem’s cheek, protected from any retaliation by the presence of their peers. Balem stands still as if he was rooted to the floor, but his eyes are alight with promised reprisal. Then Titus turns on his heel, already on to his next unfortunate target. “Menes! Vitus! You’re looking the same as ever...” Jupiter heaves a sigh.  
  
“Are we there yet?” There’s no answer, but the platform settles, at last, though the ocean goes on endlessly in all directions, and they have by no means descended into the true depths of Kallantis. It makes Jupiter’s skin crawl. Something tells her she might have found commiseration in Mr. Night, but he refuses to look at her. More spectacle awaits, however, and it is as much a diversion as she has come to expect. The platform lets out into a massive ballroom, the ceiling arcing up far above their heads, sparkling with the on-and-off-again light of the fireflies, which seem drawn to the edifice. Ornate chandeliers hang overhead, but the light they give off is only a dim glimmering. In this near-darkness, the Entitled have a spectral elegance, all the haunting beauty of eternity, adorned in shadows and flickering light. Jupiter catches herself remembering how Kalique had told her that the Entitled were the cause of a number of earthly myths, and wonders if angels are among them.  
  
The menagerie of guards and entourages take their places in the ballroom with an efficiency that looks impossibly rehearsed. Or, perhaps, not so impossibly, but so quietly that it had escaped her notice. Kalique moves easily ahead of the gathering, smiling that manicured smile of hers, which always shows just the right amount of teeth. A light from the ceiling fixes itself on her, leaving her mesmerizingly aglow.  
  
“Welcome, everyone, to Kallantis,” she begins. “It is so _excellent_ to have all of you here as we approach such a special occasion.”  
  
“Sure is,” Jupiter mumbles under her breath. Balem, who seems always to hear her, clasps his hands together, in a bid not to be seen agreeing too heartily. Kalique, who doesn’t hear, goes on.  
  
“It’s my delight to host the inaugural celebrations of my dear brother’s ten thousandth birthday. Let’s make it one well worth remembering.”  
  
“But let’s hope not to remember all of it,” Titus chimes in. “Let the revels begin!”


	11. Entitled Boogaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New terms of engagement are proposed. Jupiter becomes acquainted with more intergalactic nobility. A late arrival joins the party.

Outer-space nobles, Jupiter is quick to observe, absolutely do not fuck around when it’s time to party. She hardly knows where to begin, but does know that all the creature comforts are here. This is not a place of plenty, but one of unapologetic excess. The hall is flooded with people, though she doesn’t remember quite so many bodies gathered on the platform that had brought them down into this dark, undersea paradise. But they are here, now. Unearthly beings with painted faces and jewelled limbs, whirling around her as the music begins. Shimmering blue anti-grav beams lift dancers off their feet, and they move with weightless grace. Each gargantuan chamber throbs with sound and activity, and she feels at once that she could be swept away. Balem’s fingers are cool in the crook of her elbow. She knows that if she shook him off, they could be separated in an instant. She isn’t sure what keeps her from abandoning him.  
  
Through the windows, she can see golden light, then silver, then rich, deep red, projected out into the endless sea, fractals transmuting into fractals, so hypnotic she can only stand and stare.  
  
“Come with me,” Balem whispers in her ear. Where he means to take her is anyone’s guess, but torn between his company, and the crowd, she decides to chance it. Her heart is pounding, and she cannot look at any one spot for long before some new flash of colour or movement catches her eye. She notices Mr. Night cutting his way through the crowd, an agile, dull spot among the radiant finery of those he serves. Balem pays him no mind, but Jupiter watches over her shoulder until the crowd obscures him.  
  
As the crowd presses closer, Balem lets go of her elbow to take her hand instead. Jupiter almost stops, but he holds on tightly, and she does not let go. They pass together into the next chamber, under an archway, and some of the noise ebbs. The lounge is furnished with couches and low tables laden with Cerisean sugar, and other sweets, which Jupiter begins to sense is both Kalique’s signature, and her weakness. With RegenX-E to smooth out any unwanted wrinkles, the Entitled could eat what they liked. For Kalique that appeared to mean sugar, sugar, a pause for something savory, and then more sugar.  
  
“I need to sit down,” Jupiter says, out of some misguided hope that Balem will hear her over the din. She pulls her hand from his, and he turns. This time, rather than speak, she points to a plush couch, remarkably unoccupied, and collapses into it. It’s only then that she notices that Balem looks abjectly bored. After tens of thousands of years, it appears he’s over these events. Or perhaps he had been born over them. It takes a moment of deliberation before she judges it safe to get close enough to whisper into his ear. Having witnesses might keep him in line, which, Jupiter decides, makes an attempt at a civil conversation worth a shot. “Not your scene, huh?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Hang on. I think…” Approaching, she can see a servitant carrying a tray brimming with what, hopefully, are shot glasses. The poison and the cure. “Yeah. I got this.”  
  
The servitant stops when she beckons, and she swipes two glasses from the tray. Some are brimful of Velah, and these, Jupiter makes a point to avoid. It’s a surprise, not wholly unpleasant, when Balem does not turn down the offered shot of… Whatever this is. For now, she knows that it’s a warm, amber colour with little whorls of crimson in it, and that makes her expect that it will burn like the devil once she swallows it, which is just what she needs. She knocks her glass against Balem’s, which seems to confuse him, and drinks.  
  
For once, it’s not a mistake. Where she had expected the gnarled edges of a more terrestrial spirit, the drink has a soothing sort of heat, smoothing its way down her throat. She knows the delight is plain and immediate on her face, but can’t be arsed to try and hide it. Balem drinks, but likely only out of a perverse sense of obligation, and seems unable to enjoy it. Or anything. But as this seems to be his natural state, there’s no use in dwelling.  
  
“Listen,” she says. “Let’s start again. Set some ground rules, this time.” Balem frowns at her, frowns at her hand where it rests on his shoulder. She looks, too, as if she had forgotten it there.  
  
“Such as?” he asks.  
  
“No yelling. No weird touching.” She takes her hand off his shoulder. “More asking for permission.”  
  
“This was not a part of our initial negotiations.”  
  
“Well, maybe it should have been.” Jupiter beckons another drink their way. Balem’s expression is difficult to read, but she can see it when he begins to suspect her motives. “I meant it when I said I don’t want to fight. I’m tired of fighting. Aren’t you tired of fighting?” This time, Balem is the first to drink.  
  
“I will consider it.”  
  
“That’s all I’m asking.” And she swallows down another mouthful of amber warmth, though this time with less intent to escape her skin. There’s a lull in the conversation, after that, but no silence. This lounge area, while quieter than the hall, cannot quite escape the thunderous music. It is also, curiously, one of the more familiar experiences Jupiter has had since her departure from Earth. She wants to ask how far away they are, but Balem is first to break the silence between them.  
  
“The others will want to speak with you,” he says, as if it is a warning. Jupiter laughs.  
  
“That’ll be interesting.”  
  
“Do not speak to Menes and Vitus Eligos together. Particularly if Titus is nearby. They are fond of him,” Balem advises. “And do not let Arist Berith corner you. Approach Isatia, before he can approach you. His teeth are sharp, but she holds the leash. When you speak to Prisca Clavica, be sure to address her aide, but not before greeting her Primary, if they are present. Erato Marchosias may put her hands on your shoulders, but you may not wish for her to stop. She is an ally, but anything you tell her may find its way back to my sister.”  
  
“I’m going to forget at least half of that. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve got all the names matched to the right faces.” Jupiter’s brows scrunch together. “I also think that’s the most I’ve heard you talk since we struck our deal.” Balem looks at her for a long moment. Then a blink.  
  
“I have matters to attend,” he announces, standing. “If you cannot find me, Mr. Night will suffice.” Before he can get away, Jupiter catches his sleeve, pulling him close again, so she’ll be heard.  
  
“Thanks for the help.” He nods, then shakes her off. He’s not more than five steps out of the room before Jupiter can no longer see him in the crush of people.  


* * *

  
Now free of Jupiter, or as close to it as he dares to hope, Balem turns his thoughts to business. It’s another form of bondage, of his own design, and decidedly more unpleasant. This gathering bore all the marks of leisure, but his mother had taught him long ago that this, too, was another life-and-death matter. A slip here could be as deadly as a slip in the boardroom. Orus’ elite have assembled, after all, and while what transpired would be treated as trifles, it would not be forgotten. Titus would call it all a part of the performance, but Balem knows that none of this is for show. The meaning is plain. They are here, all of them, to proclaim power. Power, and appetite. They would feast on the weak, and then they would eat each other.  
  
Balem does not find Mr. Night as much as happen upon him on the way to more important matters. His spymaster, who had been looking out a viewport into the shimmering ocean, jerks to life at once, as if a key has been turned in his back.  
  
“My lord –” he chokes at the small, silencing gesture that another might have overlooked. Balem says nothing – he will not raise his voice for Night – but he does lay a hand on his shoulder. The raw silk cannot smother the tremor under Night’s skin, curiously attuned to the quiver in Balem’s own fingers. A repulsive moment of likeness. Night isn’t breathing. He stares, petrified, into the eternity he will spend not existing. Balem studies him as one might an insect on a needle, and decides not to crush him. Not when a worthy successor is not in easy reach. A ploy, perhaps, on the part of Night, himself, who has taken on not even one protégé in the past three hundred years. He has become, or has made himself, essential, in some small way. Mr. Night knows him a touch too well, Balem decides. Giving him a reason to doubt that knowledge is a worthy endeavour. And there remains a small, puckish delight in watching him wriggle.  
  
Balem lifts his hand, and the little colour that keeps Night from looking perpetually cyanotic returns to his face. His chalky fingers tremble as he catches the first button on his sleeve between his index finger and thumb. The ping reaches Balem’s implant at once, and he allows the message to transmit to him.  
  
– _Pallas Strigna is here. I’ve arranged a meeting for you, when it pleases you to see them. Mr. Atropo has delivered his report. It seems Lord Titus has recently solicited Menes Eligos for assistance in resolving a debt with House Berith, as we expected. I’ve also learned that House Orias has forgiven the debt he owed them. There are whispers that they hope he will convince Lady Kalique to provide further funds to their House, but I cannot substantiate them. Grimaldus Orias is on his way here, but my people cannot confirm what delayed him, or even where he is arriving from. Only that it will be soon._  
  
Balem takes this in, considers it carefully. Then he nods. His response is curt enough that it will make Mr. Night worry a little while longer, but not enough that he will resume preparing for death.  
  
– _I will speak to Pallas Strigna once Grimaldus has arrived. You will remain here. Mind Miss Jones._  
  
Without a word more, he leaves his spymaster to his own miserable devices. The crowd knows better to part for him, though from time to time, a hand will brush his shoulder, his sleeve. The music is rattling in his bones and teeth, but the sudden voice in his ear drowns it out.  
  
_–I was hoping I might catch you alone._ It is not quite a rule that the Entitled must never strain their voices, but most disdain inconvenience. And so, when Titus addresses him, it is not said, but broadcast. A whisper on a private channel in real time, both more and less intimate than the effort of shouting. A thought touching a thought. Balem grimaces.  
  
– _I’m amazed you’ve escaped your admirers._  
  
– _‘Dismayed,’ more like,_ Titus corrects.  
  
– _That as well._ This time when Balem feels a hand on him, it is on his hip, and it is his brother’s.  
  
– _I’d like to discuss something._ Titus follows him from one side of the dancefloor to the other. Balem considers more than once that he might peel Titus’ fingers from his hip and lose him in the crowd. But, of course, he would only be found again. Better to suffer this now. There is some hope of rescue; all of Titus’ favourite diversions are here, but Balem knows already that this will not be over quickly. They break from the crowd into another lounge, this one sparsely populated. It’s too early to find their peers writhing together in the dim, pressed against walls, crushed into couches.  
  
“I wonder,” Titus begins, now unnecessarily close, “and I hope you’ll tell me… What do you mean to do with Jupiter Jones?”  
  
“She is my guest.” At last, Balem is able to pry Titus’ hand off him. He is always unbearable in public. Never quite inappropriate, but irritating enough that it might merit a slap, if there were not so many spectators present.  
  
“I see.” Titus is only ever obvious by design. His skepticism is apparent, because he hopes it will yield some further information. Balem grew tired of these shots in the dark long ago, but Titus is not yet tired of taking them.  
  
“If that is all you meant to ask, Titus, I believe we’re done.” Balem imagines the pout before he sees it, and is obliged to suppress the urge to grimace, albeit for the sake of appearances alone. The turmoil in their House is no longer a secret – if ever there had been a time when it was – and there is a need to repair their image.  
  
“Curt of you,” Titus grouses. “I’m to join Alcyone for a drink, and I’m certain she’d be delighted to have a word, hm?”  
  
“Perhaps later.”  At that, Titus’ smile tautens until he looks almost the spitting image of their sister. He seizes Balem’s arm, and leans in close.  
  
“Do _not_ shut me out of these negotiations,” he hisses. When Balem detaches Titus’ hand from his arm, he thinks of snatching a snake by the back of the head to keep it from biting.  
  
“Why shouldn’t I?”  
  
Titus is in the middle of sucking in a breath to spit or retort, when a third voice interrupts them, full of crystalline disapproval.  
  
– _Bickering already? Honestly, it’s no wonder that my hair is always first to go grey._ Kalique has her arms folded over her chest, and though she isn’t scowling, her eyes are like ice. It will always be a wonder to Balem how Titus can see their sister like this, and still think to lie to her.  
  
– _Hardly._ Titus sniffs. Simpers. It is both deliberate and completely unbearable. Balem bites the inside of his cheek, to keep his tongue in check, and presses his palms together. Kalique looks between them for a moment, uncrossing her arms as though remembering that they are, no doubt, being observed.  
  
– _And just where is Jupiter?_ Balem cocks his head, even almost smiles. Keeping his siblings off Jupiter’s scent is as much a favour to her as it is a pleasure for him.  
  
“Where, indeed?”  


* * *

  
  
Jupiter is alone on her couch for about half a minute, once Balem is gone. Not that she’s counting. She is, however, distinctly aware that she is fresh meat, and all the sharks are here. Not that they have shown themselves inclined to biting. The House of Abrasax, however, has taught her to expect that it is only a matter of time before she feels teeth. Cynesige Valefar, who she remembers from Balem’s whisper into her ear, and his sad eyes, comes bearing an offering of what resembles white bonbons in a crystal bowl. He sets it down on the low table between them.  
  
_–May I join you?_ he asks, though his lips don’t move. His voice is nearly a thought, and Jupiter gives an almighty flinch at the sound.  
  
“How did you –? Did you just –? What was _that?_ ”  
  
_–Forgive me. I’m afraid it’s very loud, in here._ Cynesige frowns at her, with what she hopes is sympathy. _If I am not too bold, may I ask to see your seal?_ Jupiter isn’t certain why this is a matter of delicacy. More strange etiquette. She nods, and offers her arm, showing the bright white seal.  
  
_–Mirror me._ Exposing his own forearm, a circular mark blinks to life, bright enough that it shows against his pearlescent skin. He touches it twice, and then a spot behind his left ear. Jupiter, after a moment’s deliberation, mimics the gesture, and nearly suffers a heart attack when a thought that is not a thought, sounds out inside her head.  
  
_–Would you like to enable unvoiced pinging?_  
  
_–Think “yes.”_  
  
– _Yes._  
  
There isn’t a word that Jupiter knows for the sensation that ripples through her, cleaving the thoughts she would keep to herself from those she would direct elsewhere. The seal, the brand on her arm, grows very cold, just for a moment. What had they done to her? Had she always been able to… Cynesige’s voice brushes against her mind like a feather.  
  
_–I forget,_ he says, _that you are not as familiar with our world as your Precursor was._  
  
– _I’m really not,_ Jupiter admits. It’s surprisingly easy to speak without speaking. Her lips barely even twitch.  
  
_–In time, all things become familiar._ Cynesige nudges the bowl of bonbons toward her with the tips of his fingers. _Something sweet?_  
  
Accepting food always seems like some kind of unspoken agreement, but Jupiter takes one anyway, convinced it can’t be any weirder than this newfound telepathy. The bonbon is firmer to the touch than she expects, and smooth, like a gumball. It bursts into smoke when she bites down on it, filling her mouth and lungs with cool vapour. In her surprise, she laughs, huffing smoke out her nose. Her new acquaintance smiles, but it looks as if it pains him. Like the other Entitled, he seems unable to smile quite right, as if the passing millennia have made the expression somehow beyond his ancient understanding.  
  
_–So you knew my, uh, my Precursor?_  
  
– _Of course. We all did._  
  
For an ugly instant, Jupiter wonders if Seraphi had enjoyed these… whatever they are. She doesn’t ask what they are called, and she doesn’t take another one. She might even have fled the situation all together, were it not for the sudden weight of warm hands on her shoulders. Jupiter flinches at the touch, but those unfamiliar fingers are quick at work. It’s almost nostalgic. She isn’t certain why she thinks of Caine Wise. He would hate this place. And he would absolutely hate these people.  
  
– _You look tense, sweet. Don’t tell me this doe-eyed darling is giving you trouble._ The owner of those frankly magical hands is a woman with a face so intricately scarred that it could only have been done deliberately. Jupiter only has to study her face for a moment to understand why Kalique had been reduced to stammering after one look from her.  
  
Across from Jupiter, and immune to their new companion’s charms, Cynesige takes fruitless pains not to visibly bristle. He clasps his hands neatly in his lap, and the somber downturn of his lips loses some of its softness.  
  
– _Erato._ He doesn’t blink when he looks at her, but she seems more delighted than distressed by his scrutiny. Her grin shows canines that are just a touch too sharp.  
  
– _Such a chilly greeting! You weren’t hoping to monopolize our new-old friend, were you? For shame!_ Erato leans in, so close Jupiter can feel the flickering of her breath. “Mustn’t let him steal you away, must we? Not when we are all so eager to finally meet you.” Erato plucks a bonbon from the bowl, cracking it between her teeth and letting the smoke trickle out past her lips. Jupiter swallows and looks determinedly into her lap for a couple of seconds.   
  
“I’m, uh… Charmed.”  
  
“Do you dance, Jupiter?” Erato comes prowling around the couch. Unlike Cynesige, who cautiously took the seat across from Jupiter, she settles beside her, and doesn’t bother to ask.  
  
“S-sometimes.” Without those deft fingers at work, Jupiter finds herself almost able to think again, and she thinks of calling for help. The realization that ‘help’ means ‘Balem,’ in this place, comes with such cognitive dissonance that it’s almost dizzying. Erato’s beckoning before Jupiter can right herself.  
  
_–You’ll dance tonight, then, won’t you? With us?_ Erato reaches across the way, and touches Cynesige’s wrist. Jupiter looks between them, and wonders when simple decisions like this will no longer feel like stepping off a ledge. She takes a second bonbon from the bowl, and holds the sweet smoke in her lungs. Then she stands, even finds it in herself to smile.  
  
_–What could it hurt?_ The words are barely out of mind when the lights change, brighten.  
  
_–Someone must have just arrived._ Cynesige observes, before Erato makes another move. _Shall we go and see?_  
  
– _Grimaldus Orias, fashionably late, I expect,_ Erato supplies, hoping, perhaps that this is not an incentive to spectate. Jupiter almost regrets thwarting her, but sees at once the chance to escape into familiar – if no more trustworthy – company. She glances at Cynesige.  
  
_–I’m in._


	12. Wine, Scheming, and Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimaldus Orias arrives bearing gifts. Jupiter learns more about Entitled revelry. Balem attends a clandestine meeting. Mr. Night frets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a very-very long-long-long-long-long time since the last chapter. I'd like to thank all of you that are still sticking around in spite of my tardiness! A long story short (haha), I've been deep in a post-graduate program which consumed a lot of my time, among other, more personal, difficulties. Still, I've promised not to abandon this story, and I absolutely mean to keep that promise.
> 
> Thanks again for staying with me! More to come, cross my heart. <3

As timeless as the Entitled already are, the seconds hang in stasis as Grimaldus Orias descends into the undersea paradise in which they revel. Jupiter, whose borrowed years do not rival those around her, can almost feel her heart slowing. Beside her, Erato Marchosias curses under her breath.  
  
“Oh, I _hate_ him.”  
  
Cynesige says nothing, but his rosy lips part just slightly to let a breath out. The hush, which began little by little, now dominates the room. But for every pair of eyes that fix themselves on the sole Primary of the House of Orias, another finds their way to Jupiter. Under the fading haze of her few-too-many drinks, Jupiter begins to remember what they are, to feel again the weight of what they are. Grimaldus does not come accompanied with the same grand retinue of his peers, and needs none. The echo of his Precursor is adornment enough. Only four stern Aviaganti stand with him, great wings unfurled, protective, and carrying a curtained palanquin, large enough to house at least six. Palanquin and guard follow Grimaldus as he steps into the room. His gauzy robes ripple like the water that surrounds them, even now, and Jupiter notices that his feet are bare. Everything feels far away, which could, in fairness, still be the influence of all that Pax’s Breath. Jupiter feels the crowd stir, but is taxed to notice who moves.  
  
– _Forgive me_ , Grimaldus begins, and his voice smooths over the near-silence like a balm and doesn’t break it. He raises his hands, open palms turned up, and though he looks the supplicant, he yet exudes the breathless wonder of an object of reverence. Even Titus is caught up in the hush for a moment. The spell weakens as he cuts through the crowd, but holds.  
  
“Hate him,” Erato mumbles again.  
  
– _We are inclined to forgive,_ Titus broadcasts, _at cost, of course._ His voice is less a balm. Jupiter, having regained some presence of mind, manages not to grimace. The crowd, beginning to reawaken, lets out an appreciative rumble. Balem is nowhere to be seen, Jupiter notices, but does not wonder where he has gone.  
  
“I have not come without an offering. A gift from our private supply.” Grimaldus gestures to the palanquin behind him. One of the Aviaganti, this one with brilliant white feathers, pulls aside the heavy curtain, embroidered with Abrasax black and gold, unveiling a bronze fountain to more rumbling from the assembled nobility. It runs glittering silver, smoke curling and uncurling in the basin.  
  
“Rhapsody,” Cynesige whispers, a new liveliness enkindling in his sad eyes. Now standing at the foot of the platform, Titus grins as he draws near, clasping Grimaldus’ beautiful hands in his.  
  
“If this is how you mean to spoil me, I may have to begin celebrating every year.”  
  
“Unless we exhaust you first!” Erato calls out, waving a scarred hand. Titus, all mischief, beams at the challenge.  
  
“Shall we see if you can?”  
  
“If it means we can all drink deep tonight!”  
  
“For Erato Marchosias, the world!” cries Titus, “but only if she will honour me with a dance.” In the crowd, Jupiter catches a glimpse of Kalique, who begins to smile. Still grinning, she leans over and breathes a secret into the ear of Arist Berith, who must nearly kneel to hear it.  
  
Erato, who has seen none of this, only lifts her arms and calls out, “then let the Great Houses join us!” And with that cry, the revels begin anew. As suddenly as she had appeared by Jupiter’s side, Erato is gone, weaving through the Entitled and their entourages. There is barely time to feel her absence before the silken fingertips of Alcyone Orias slip around her wrist.  
  
– _A word?_  
  
– _S… Sure._  
  
– _I see Balem has left you alone in the wilderness._  
  
– _A bit. This kind of thing…_  
  
– _Not to your taste?_  
  
– _It’s been awhile since my last all-nighter._  
  
Alcyone’s endlessly dark eyes light with momentary surprise before she laughs, inaudible over the sumptuous din. Then she gives an odd, sympathetic cant of her head, brows crinkling. The shallowest of wrinkles forms between them, just for a moment, then vanishes again as if it had never been. Time does not recoil from her, but it refuses to leave a mark.  
  
– _My darling, this is an event that will not happen again for some thousands of years. Do you sincerely believe it will be over in only a night?_  
  
The gravity of the situation begins to sink in, then, as Jupiter recalls that this event could literally go on forever. – _Don’t look so troubled_ , Alcyone says, _we still tire from time to time. But not just yet._ _I must go and welcome that child of mine before Titus convinces him to breathe too deeply of our Rhapsody. Come along?_ For all his animosity towards Grimaldus, Balem had not uttered a single word of warning about Alcyone. What he ought to have said was that it is halfway impossible to look at that face, and deny her. Jupiter’s fingers twine with hers of their own accord as they advance through the crowd. Around them, the music swells anew, and from his place before the glimmering fountain, Grimaldus catches Jupiter’s eye, and smiles.  


* * *

  
_Mind Miss Jones, he said. Mind Miss Jones._ Mr. Night repeats the command to himself as if it will give him strength. _Mind Miss Jones. Don’t think about how he’s cut you out of the meeting with Pallas Strigna. There must be a reason._ He can’t help the niggling sensation that he has been here before. _Just find her._  
  
The crush of bodies would be tedious enough to navigate as it is, but this gathering has the added risk that he might tread on an Entitled toe and be flayed accordingly. Or those wretched immortals might grow bored, and then cruel. And so, Night lets his hired eyes do the finding for him. Of course, some of the gathering consists of sims and splices bred to entertain, to fill the gaps between these most elite of the Entitled. Lord Titus loves to feel adored, however, and has had this small gathering padded with bodies, generated, paid for, beckoned. A feast of living things. After all these years, it is still an effort not to shudder at the thought. _Focus. Find Miss Jones._ It will not take long for his people to deliver, and so Night spends the time in idle search for his fellow aides, and hoping that Vesper Nyctalus will not be among them. He finds Malidictes instead, staidly sipping a pink cocktail through a straw.  
  
“You’re looking well, Chicanery,” he simpers. Night swallows his first three responses and smiles. He can feel his upper lip twitching.  
  
“My lord is good to those who serve him well,” he says instead of baring his teeth. Malidictes, who looks down his too-thin nose at everyone, quirks a feathery brow.  
  
“Nothing to drink?”  
  
“It’s just a touch early for me.” The pink quivers in the glass as Malidictes’ grip tightens on the stem, a sight which gives Night no small amount of satisfaction. That’ll teach him; the droning idiot.  
  
“I see,” Malidictes manages feebly. It even feels like triumph for a moment before a puff of breath breaks against Night's nape. He knows Famulus by her perfume. Brightbane flowers, the sort that only grow on Zalintyre, endangered, once, and rare, but now more plentiful after the planet’s harvest. He can taste the petals under his tongue. Her hands are warm when they ghost over his shoulders, all deliberate, all terrible.  
  
“I’m not interrupting, I hope.”  
  
“Not at all,” Night says at once. “I was just about to be on my way.”  
  
“Oh? Somewhere to be?” Night’s whiskers twitch, quite against his volition, a tell that he is keenly aware that Famulus knows. Malidictes will know only if she has taken it upon herself to tell him.  
  
“Haven’t we all?” Night sighs. “These events are leisurely for our masters only.” Famulus smiles like she pities him. He smiles back by imagining himself pouring out the contents of Malidictes’ prissy little cocktail over his condescending little head.  
  
“Well then,” Famulus smooths the front of Night’s jacket, “we’ll not keep you.”  
  
“Quite kind, quite kind,” Night mumbles before he begins to beat his retreat, desperate to ignore the sudden hammering of his heart. Famulus gives a dainty wave and he ignores this, too. Whether he meant to make it known or not, he is required elsewhere. Of course, word has reached Pallas Strigna of Lord Balem’s chosen meeting place, and so that needs no attending… Famulus and Malidictes both are where they can do no harm, and Jupiter Jones is…  
  
– _Eyes on the Recurrence, er, Recurrences._  
  
– _Recurrences._  
  
– _Confirmed._ _Jupiter Jones is in the company of Grimaldus Orias._  
  
– _And Lord Balem?_  
  
– _Not with them. He met briefly with Lady Kalique and Lord Titus, but his appointment has not been delayed._  
  
– _Understood._  
  
The reply transmits mildly, but Night quickens his step into the other massive chamber, where all of the Entitled seem to have gathered. And there, in the middle, a sight that would begin to unhinge Lord Balem’s temper, if only he could see. Night wrings his hands and sucks his teeth, helpless to observe as Alcyone greets her chosen heir with Jupiter in tow, and the other Entitled flock like flies to honey. And sweet stars above, they’re about to get into the Rhapsody.  


* * *

  
In the instant it takes to lock eyes with Grimaldus, Jupiter realizes both that this is going to piss Balem off beyond belief, and that it doesn’t matter all that much to her. It also occurs to her that this is likely the opposite of not fighting with him. But he’d left her in the middle of this almost-literal shark tank with nothing but a list of names of people to avoid, and also hadn’t agreed to her revised terms of engagement, so fuck him and the overwrought spaceship he’d rode in on. Or something. She’s stopped asking herself why they can’t have civil, grown-up conversations.  
  
The palanquin can’t house everyone, and those who do not slink inside return to their own diversions. The music pulses around them, ethereal, the air electric with silent conversations, with whispers in the dim. She can’t remember the names of the twins who hang on Titus’ arms, mirrors of each other. Kalique slips in after them, light on slippered feet, and the twins greet her in perfect unison. Titus grins, self-satisfied, and his sister’s answering smile is pearly white. It doesn’t last, and it isn’t long before the Second Primary of the House of Abrasax insinuates herself, sidling up on Jupiter’s other side when Alcyone breaks away for a word with her heir.  
  
– _Someone’s curried favour with the House of Orias, I see_. Kalique begins. Their shoulders brush.  
  
– _Not something I planned._  
  
– _No? I thought you might enjoy them…_ Kalique trails off, when Erato catches her eye from the edge of the palanquin and winks. ‘Come dance with me,’ say the scarred lips, though only music seems to come out.  
  
– _We can talk later_ , Jupiter tells her as Erato begins to beckon. Torn, Kalique looks between them once, twice, and then, defeated, murmurs, “be careful with that Rhapsody,” and drifts to Erato’s side as if drawn there by gravity, smiling tautly. And then, to Jupiter’s endless chagrin, it’s Titus’ turn to notice her. He disentangles himself from the twins, leaving each with a kiss as he does.  
  
– _Jupiter Jones, come to join us! What an unusual opportunity. Two Recurrences in our company._ He broadcasts this for everyone to hear, which makes her knee-jerk reaction one that’s better left restrained. For the first time, her smile feels mechanical, as if for a moment she had forgotten how it’s done.  
  
– _A first for both of us,_ she says, as though someone else has whispered the words into her ear.  
  
– _A first for almost all of us, if I am not mistaken,_ Grimaldus chimes in. _I can think of no better occasion for something so rare._  
  
I can, Jupiter wants to say, and might have done, had this exchange happened earlier. Luckily, some of her inhibitions have begun trickling back in. She keeps the snark to herself as Grimaldus goes on.  
  
– _There is more to my gift_ , he says, drawing Titus’ attention away from Jupiter so deftly that she can’t quite tell if the help is deliberate or incidental.  
  
“More?” The syllables form on Titus’ lips with a predictable naturalness. Jupiter is in the middle of puzzling out whether it’s possible to loathe him any more than she already does when she notices that something is moving. A slow stirring begins at the base of the fountain as the rippling moulding illuminates the colour of old turquoise, languidly extricating itself from the bronze basin.  
  
– _Sleights,_ comes the helpful whisper, though Jupiter isn’t sure who sends it. They rise like ribbons caught in a breeze that the palanquin’s occupants can neither see nor feel, smooth as the water all around them. Titus watches them with boyish delight, but Jupiter knows better. The entire purpose of this gathering is a reminder of what an ancient monstrosity Titus is. _But what does that make the rest?_ she wonders, watching as Grimaldus beckons the ribbon-like apparitions, which twine around his long fingers, their seafoam green turning red as fresh blood. He transfers them to Titus, whose smile broadens.  
  
– _I’ve never touched a sleight_ , he says. _They’re colder than I expected. Better for it. They must be truly stunning once the Rhapsody takes hold._  
  
– _Would you like to see?_  
  


* * *

 __  
“Lord Balem, Pallas Strigna.” At first, Balem forgets that he has excised Chicanery Night from the meeting, and so at first, the sight of Mr. Atropo there in his place is irritating. The sound of his dry, crackling voice is similarly irritating. He gives a flick of his wrist, and Atropo knows he has been banished. Even the sound of his departure is unlike Mr. Night, who vanishes like candlelight, suddenly snuffed. Balem’s lips tauten as he looks over Pallas Strigna. They could almost be a sibling to Malidictes, save that their plumage is steel grey, and they lack his insufferable drawl. They bow suitably low before him. But for a smile that is too self-satisfied, they are the picture of servile humility.  
  
“It is an honour to meet with you in person, my lord.” They have a crisp tone, orderly as their gown, with its sharp shoulders, precise, flattering lines on a body that is all edges. Balem, already annoyed, is in no mood to appreciate this, however. He sneers.  
  
“I hope you have not crossed so great a distance for that alone.”  
  
“Indeed not,” Pallas concedes, orange eyes unblinking. Their time has no value to him, after all. Like history, he would soon forget the jagged shapes which composed the face of Pallas Strigna. He would forget, but endure. To their credit, they do not squirm in the beat of silence that follows their concession. Instead of writhing, they continue. “Rather, I come to give you my personal assurance regarding the suit–” Balem lifts a hand.  
  
“All I require is your compliance.”  
  
“And my silence.” That self-satisfied smile returns, as if Pallas is arrogant enough to think that they have leverage. Balem regards them with the stillness of a cobra weighing whether to strike or not. His smile stretches the corners of his mouth slowly, and shows the tips of his teeth.  
  
“I trust that is assured.” He has no need to utter a greater threat. There is no one in the galaxy who cannot be ground to dust under the heel of the House of Abrasax. Pallas’ smile remains fixed, locked in place when their jaw clenches, when they remember their place. Eventually, they remember to breathe, and remember to speak.  
  
“With such a new claim, I suspect it will not be difficult to… delay things.” Pallas smooths the steely feathers along their arms, half-bristling. “I imagine you must know more about the matter than I, my lord, but with a crop of that magnitude, are you certain–” Another twitch of his fingers silences them.  
  
“Losses are a part of business.” This time, Pallas only gives a terse nod.  
  
“Of course. There is also the matter of the illegitimacy of Her Majesty’s current claim. I will require the Android’s data banks in addition to the holos from Revenue Review.”  
  
“You’ll have them,” Balem agrees. There’s no need to waste time considering what he has already decided. “Inform Mr. Night of your request. I trust everything else is in order?”  
  
This time Pallas Strigna does not smile, but they clasp their hands together as if crushing an insect between their palms.  
  
“Perfectly.”


	13. A Rhapsody in Aurum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected revelation makes Jupiter doubt her potential allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a lifetime since my last update, and for those of you who've stuck around, you have my thanks and endless appreciation. Also, I'm beginning to think that it might be wise to include a guide to the characters, as I seem to have invented quite a few. Let me know in the comments if that's something you'd like!
> 
> Also, I know it's taking forever, and I'm not able to make my deadlines, but if nothing else, we're going to see the end of this fic.

Partaking of Rhapsody, it seems, is the act of breathing in stars. The fountain ignites, the colour of molten gold, gently aglow. Jupiter wants all of it. That jag of immediate, painful wanting entangles her, if only for a moment, in thoughts of Caine Wise, far away from here, and surely furious still. She watches as Titus takes a first greedy pull of Rhapsody from one of several long hoses. The scene is not altogether strange to her, but even so, she finds herself searching the gathering for guidance. Grimaldus sees this, as he seems to see everything, but when he gives nothing but a querying look, Jupiter takes it upon herself to ask.  
  
– _Is it safe? I heard the Aviaganti are all addicted._  
  
– _A misrepresentation._ The query in Grimaldus’ eyes turns into something colder. For the first time Jupiter wonders what he must be like when he is angry. _The Aviaganti need our Rhapsody. They are not addicted, and those who choose to serve us do so of their own choosing._ _This particular formula is quite safe for recreational use._ Grimaldus, too, observes as Titus pulls again. _When it is enjoyed responsibly, of course._ It’s strange, talking across the room without making a sound, but at once much better than having to shout. Even an empire built on cannibalism must get a few things right. From that distance, Jupiter watches as Grimaldus deftly turns his attention to Titus, plucking the hose from his fingers. Her observation turns rather more rapt as Titus cups Grimaldus’ face in his hands, sharing radiant smoke. It pours in curling tendrils along Grimaldus’ jaw, trickling over his throat, and he breathes it in. Titus leans closer, chasing the last little wisps, their lips almost touching. Only a message from Alcyone puts an end to Jupiter’s unabashed gawking.  
  
– _You see?_ Jupiter still doesn’t fully understand how she can distinguish between a message meant for everyone, and a message for her alone, but she knows, just as she knew when Grimaldus spoke to her, that no one else can hear Alcyone’s voice. She navigates the gathering effortlessly, to join Jupiter, a benevolent smile on her lips, painted silver, resplendent against her rich, dark skin. _Incorrigible._ The word comes out as if on a sigh. _There’s no one in the universe who enables vice like Titus Abrasax, I’m afraid. Except, perhaps, the lady Marchosias, who I believe you’ve met._  
  
– _Briefly_.  
  
– _Did she get your shoulders, my darling? She usually does._ The sensation of nearly melting under Erato’s fingertips has not quite faded from memory.  
  
– _She sure did._  
  
– _I see you have the Abrasax susceptibility to that particular charm. Although, I believe only Arist Berith is completely immune, and that is only because she cannot **reach** his shoulders. Seraphi, too, was always…_ Alcyone’s expression turns wistful. _I apologize. I’m sure most everyone must have something to say to you about your Precursor_. Heedless, the sleights ripple through the rising vapour, mesmerizing even without a breath of Rhapsody to enhance the experience. It’s easier to look at them flitting through the smoke, tracking the glimmering whorls of their wake.  
  
– _Yeah… Most of it comes in bits and pieces._ Jupiter frowns, just slightly. _It’s okay. I don’t actually know all that much about her. There’s a lot of history I’m missing… Pretty wild stuff._ The frown turns into a grimace when she tries to smile through it. Alcyone’s hand is warm on her shoulder. Steady. Familiar. Still, Jupiter can’t meet her eye, instead observing as the twins saunter out, lungs full of Rhapsody, bound for the dancefloor and other delights.  
  
– _I’m afraid I can’t understand your situation quite the way my son does. It was thousands of years ago when he was learning his way around our world. But let me say this._ Her grip tightens, just slightly. _If there’s anything, anything that you think might be of aid to you, I hope you will ask. There are many here tonight who think to advance themselves through your favour. With your enviable holdings, it’s difficult to blame them. Know that I have no need for such advancement, and I make this offer freely. A deed of gift, if you will._  
  
Jupiter’s stomach twists. It should be a relief to hear such a boldfaced promise of aid. And there’s no denying that she needs all the help she can get. Before she can say anything, Erato bursts back into the palanquin. Through her unease, Jupiter notes a dark lovebite on Kalique’s neck as she trails along behind her.  
  
– _Rhapsody, sweet Rhapsody!_ Erato bellows for everyone to hear, grinning like a jackal. She throws an arm around Kalique’s shoulders, guiding her to the fountain’s edge.  
  
Igneous clouds of Rhapsody push against the palanquin roof, and servitants come and go with sweets and savoury, Velah and other spirits. Jupiter helps herself to another bonbon, cool white smoke understated compared to the incandescent Rhapsody filling the air. And, as was no doubt only a matter of time, the hose comes to them.  
  
Alcyone, graceful as ever, declines, and perhaps seeing this moment to give Jupiter sufficient space, bows out of the palanquin. She extends a hand and Titus alights on it like a lured songbird. They’re no sooner gone when Cynesige drifts in like a wisp of smoke on the wind. Erato wastes no time in rounding on him, though this time when she smirks, he smiles softly back.  
  
– _And just where have you been?_  
  
– _Drinking with House Berith._  
  
– _Brave, brave, brave. Will they come and join us, too?_  
  
– _In time, I expect. Isatia willing._ Erato laughs at that, and beckons Cynesige nearer. They’ve forgotten Jupiter for now, leaving her a cautious spectator. Even Kalique doesn’t approach, hovering at Erato’s elbow. After another moment, Larkin Clavica joins them, though Jupiter can’t remember their name until Kalique helpfully (and privately) supplies it. At the fountain’s edge, Cynesige breathes deep, and lavishes the palms of Eratos’ hands with grateful kisses. Jupiter resists the urge to shake her head. She’d been convinced they disliked each other. Kalique watches this for a moment, unsmiling, which by now Jupiter has begun to recognize as more telling than her grin. The longer she sits, watching, the more Jupiter becomes aware of a burgeoning feeling of elation. As nervous as this gathering has made her, as disturbed as she has been by the goings on, it reaches her less and less. Washing away. Jupiter’s quiet observation goes on just a touch longer than it ought. Kalique catches her eye, then glides effortlessly to her side.  
  
“The Rhapsody is on you,” she says. Her lips quirk, dimpling her cheeks. _I told you to be careful._  
  
– _You didn’t say I’d get a **contact high**._ The phrase seems lost on Kalique, and the annoyance Jupiter might have felt is dampened. Not absent, but dampened. She looks again to the resplendent fountain, the immortal creatures crowded around it, and feels that pull again. Trying the stuff is out of the question, but that does nothing to stop her from wanting it. Craving it, almost. Something white flickers in the corner of her vision, and she startles. It’s only a sleight, which produces a sibilant crooning sound that is more felt than heard.  
  
– _Delightful creatures, aren’t they?_ Kalique holds out a hand, and the sleight weaves through her fingers, coiling down her arm. _So beautiful. Soft. My mother never saw the appeal. What could a thing profit us, being made only for softness?_ She shakes the sleight off, and it drifts gently away. _They’re worth a fortune. So difficult to keep alive._ _Perhaps she was right, hm?_ Jupiter bites her lip. Silence isn’t the best answer, but it’s better than to agree, and be Seraphi’s shadow, or disagree and voice dissent from behind her face.  
  
– _I’m... I’m gonna step out, I think._ Jupiter manages a hasty smile, before ducking out of the palanquin. The hall seems a hundred times larger without that roof of glowing Rhapsody over her head, and she almost reels as she remembers that they are deep undersea. The lights are mesmerizing.  
  
– _Jupiter._ At first, she thinks that Kalique must have given chase, but when she whirls, it’s to discover Grimaldus Orias, inevitable as the weather.  
  
– _Listen, I_ — He takes her hands, his own achingly soft.  
  
– _Please, won’t you **dance** with me?_ The yellow of his eyes is a sliver against his pupils, dark and endlessly hopeful. His grip slackens after a beat of silence passes between them, but Jupiter holds him there. She nods her acquiescence and Grimaldus sweeps her up in his arms as if he had been waiting millennia just to do it. The attention this draws is immediate, and curiously reverent. There is no shortage of people who will remind her that Recurrences are holy things, whether she feels that way or not. Moving her body is easier. She lets the music take hold.  
  
Without the help of the Rhapsody, Jupiter is sure that she would find it odd how natural it is, how effortless, to dance with Grimaldus Orias. But everything is softer. His clothes, the fiery spirals of his hair. His hand fits perfectly against the small of her back.  
  
– _There’s so much I want to ask you._  
  
– _Then ask._  
  
– _I’m not sure if I trust you._  
  
– _I understand. You’ve been burned before. Not by me. I would sooner scorch my own hands to pull you from the fire._  
  
– _Why?_  
  
“Because your father was very dear to me,” his lips brush her ear. She isn’t sure what makes the Entitled move from these silent communications to speaking, and back, or what the significance of doing so must be, but his voice is hypnotic all the same. “Because long ago, I was just as lost as you are now, and someone came to my aid when my need was most dire. Because your success will mean great change in this stagnating universe. Because I must. We _need_ someone like you, Jupiter. More than you know. I think you are already beginning to realize this.”  
  
Jupiter wants so dearly to believe him then, scouring his expression for any hint, any sign of deception. The Rhapsody cannot soften the nauseous feeling that accompanies the chastening memory of Titus’ betrayal. He, too, had looked so full of answers. So beautiful. She had trusted him too easily, had wanted to believe, desperate for something to cling to.  
  
“Will you tell me about Seraphi? About what happened? You were there before she—before Balem—” Grimaldus stills her questions with two gentle squeezes of her hand.  
  
“In time, I will tell you everything.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Balem is not eager to return to the tangled mass of bodies that is his sister’s unpalatable aperitif to Titus’ birthday celebrations. Without their servitants, aides and entourages, the gathering would seem almost pathetically small. And yet, between them, they divided the known universe. That, in itself, had a certain pitifulness about it, which made the gathering all the more intolerable. Had their world always been so wretchedly small? He can feel it constrict, winding itself around him like the sinewy body of a snake that never seems content to swallow him and be done. Coupled with the endless nanotransmitted conversations and subterfuge, Balem considered simply slipping away. If only this tedious, pulsing inconvenience did not remain a part of the business. If only abandoning it did not mean leaving Jupiter alone among his enemies. Still, he walks slowly from the quiet room where he’d met with Pallas Strigna. A few moments more would mean very little in the centuries ahead. There are few Balem might have hoped to have words with—Cynesige Valefar, perhaps, whose bottomless gloom keeps his conversations brief, or Arist Berith, whose language comes curling off his tongue like rivulets of blood. They know their places in the universe, stay their orbits, and unsettle Entitled stars the way the tides unsettle the shore. Only to give it shape. The meddling of Prisca Clavica is less welcome. A diversion, but a tedious one. He strives not to dwell on who he might have preferred to find him here alone. Prisca’s aide, Ilaus Suali, a trophy from an Old House cannibalized by the Clavica, speaks for her.  
  
“I wish I could say I am surprised to find you alone, Lord Balem,” he croaks. He has done nearly all of Prisca’s speaking for the evening, and the pain it causes him has turned him chalky white. The webbed scarring on his throat remains whiter still. Balem’s first intrusive thought is to touch his lips to that shrivelled skin, and the next is to sink his teeth into it. A mercy that such a one no doubt craves, and a reminder that Balem knows that he needs. He will not travel the universe on the end of a leash like Ilaus Suali. And he will not take his enemies for pets like Prisca Clavica.  
  
“I do not speak to lapdogs,” he says, watching Prisca’s expression tauten. It’s this very thing, he suspects, that Titus so enjoys seeing when he needles him. “It is quieter, here, than in the main hall. Enjoy it while you can.” It isn’t half the veiled threat Prisca will make of it. Balem shoulders past. Let her sniff about as if she has no spies to do that work on her behalf. He has left Jupiter for too long, and unless she’s kept drinking, much longer might give her cause for suspicion. And there is, of course, the matter of consulting his own informants. He drags his fingertips over the node behind his ear.  
  
– _Mr. Night._  
  
– _Everything is in order, my lord. I’ve made the necessary accommodations._ Balem scowls to himself. For all of his efficiencies, Mr. Night can be willfully obtuse.  
  
– _And Jupiter?_ By now, the rat splice’s hesitant silences are so familiar that they are detectable even in these nanotransmissions.  
  
– _Main ballroom, my lord. In the company of Grimaldus Orias._  
  
The sudden twist in Balem’s gut erases everything. Of course, he had known that this might happen. That that most ancient and conniving of worms would begin to coil around that which was rightfully his, would whisper poison into her ear, just has he had done before, so long ago. Balem makes no effort to dignify Night with a response, and the rat knows better than to interfere. It wasn’t as if it would alter his course.  
  
The main ballroom is an assault of sound and colour, an affront layered on an affront. He can feel the tremor in his body that urges him to violence, and shrugs off the first person that dares to touch him. They’re not important. There is only one thing in the room that he cares to look at. He sees his mother in the arms of the First Primary of the House of Orias, sees Jupiter, almost at ease, his white hand on the small of her back. The greatest insult is the time it takes for either one of them to take notice of him, as if for a moment he does not exist. As if it does not _matter_ that he exists. He balls his hands into fists to keep the trembling at bay. It takes all of his willpower not to send a hissing nanotransmission to tell Grimaldus outright that he wants nothing more than to scrub him clean from the face of history. They turn in their torturous orbit and finally, finally, Jupiter sees him.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
It had only been a matter of time. Jupiter expects it, when she sees Balem in all of his thunderous opulence, already seething with outrage that she has spent this time with someone else’s arms around her. She does not expect the white figure beside him, throat dripping with rubies. She does not expect to see her own face, or to see herself with such a look of imperious accusation. The apparition dissolves in a blink but Grimaldus notices her distraction.  
  
– _I have to ask you something_ , she says before he can comment, overcome by an urgency that overrides her mistrust. _Did you… Have you ever seen your Precursor? In reflections or—_  
  
– _Yes._ _There was a time when I thought I saw him everywhere._ Jupiter can’t feel anything but Balem’s eyes boring into them.  
  
“I have to go,” she says.  
  
“I know.” Grimaldus takes her hands, reverent as before, but with a strange sadness in his yellow eyes that she had not noticed before. With Balem fixated on their every move, he only holds on only briefly, pressing the backs of her fingers to his forehead. He releases her, and she cuts her way through the crowd to meet Balem. She seizes his wrist before he can open his mouth to hiss at her.  
  
– _Don’t._ _Just come with me_. Jupiter isn’t completely certain of where she’ll take them. Somewhere to escape the noise, where she can push through whatever this is. The lounge she finds is mercifully empty, or chillingly so. She can’t imagine who could come to her aid if Balem turns violent. She’s also fairly certain she can put him in his place.  
  
“I know you’re pissed,” she says as soon as she can hear clearly. “Remember I don’t want to fight.” When Balem does not open his mouth to yell, Jupiter takes this as progress. Her little brush with Rhapsody has made optimism somehow less difficult.  
  
“Why were you with _him?_ ” Balem demands, flexing his hands as if to stretch the tremor out. “Why him?”  
  
“Why does it matter so much?” Jupiter won’t give an inch in the face of his seething. “I don’t understand.” Balem makes no answer in favour of pacing in front of the window, a glimmering silhouette against the crushing black of Kallantis’ oceans.  
  
“You don’t understand,” he echoes.  
  
“That’s not new information. You won’t _tell_ me anything. I haven’t even spent a whole day with Grimaldus and I know more about him than I do about you.”  
  
“Do you think so?” Balem smiles. “Did he tell you that he was there when his planet was Harvested?” And just like that, all of the air goes out of the room. The same as Titus. The same as all of them. Her stomach roils, and every soft feeling that had come with her exposure to Rhapsody begins to sour. Mirrored in the darkness of the ocean beyond, a white figure throws back her head and laughs. _Haven’t you learned by now?_ Jupiter teeters on her feet, ready to snatch up Balem by the front of his clothes and shake him for telling her this only when it was most convenient, and marching back out into the hall to do precisely the same to Grimaldus Orias. She settles instead on a question.  
  
“What do you _want_ from me?” There is almost silence between them, then, though no such thing can possibly exist in a place like this. The music is distant, but audible, a slower, steadier pulse than the one beneath her breastbone. Balem’s stare is fixed on her, and instead of answering, he offers his hands. Offers, or holds them out in expectation of hers. White flickers at the corners of her vision, that spectre flitting all around them like one of Titus’ sleights. Her own hands begin to tremble with an obliterating anger. How dare he? How dare _any of them?_ It is as if all those wasted souls that have restored her have begun to rally and cry out from beneath and between the layers of her rejuvenated skin. Or maybe they are silent, and this feeling is nothing but the realization that what she wants now, may be revenge. She reaches out, but only to press one hand against Balem’s gorget, his collar, firmly enough that her palm will come away with the imprint of its texture.  
  
“You’re going to tell me everything,” she snarls. “Everything.” And in the moment she feels him weakening, she crushes her mouth against his. For a dizzying moment, as he loops his arms around her waist, Jupiter begins to wonder how she has arrived here. And Titus’ voice, thick with drink and other vices, shatters everything. Jupiter flinches away, but there’s no one in the room with them; it’s a broadcast meant for everyone in range.  
  
– _I’m done with this. New planet. You’ll find the new coordinates transmitted to your vessels. Everybody out!_  
  
“For once in his life, he’s right,” Balem breathes against her throat, “we should get out of here.”


End file.
